Less Man, More 'Mon
by CoGDork
Summary: A total jerk of a god takes an ordinary guy IRL, wipes his memories, and sticks him in Unova as a poke-raised wild child, all for his own personal amusement. What else to do but go on a rather unusual pokemon journey?
1. Wake up, Crono—er, Ken!

**A/N:** ** _Welcome to my newest SI! I've already posted several chapters of it on Spacebattles, but I figured it'd be a good idea to share it here as well. If you haven't heard of Jumpchain, let me give you a bit of a rundown:_**

 _ **Basically, it's a Choose Your Own Adventure multi-crossover self-insert writing challenge, but with dice. You pick a setting (Pokemon is the traditional starting point), roll dice to determine where you start, your starting age, and your background (which affects your skills and abilities), then spend 1000 points on various advantages or skills you want—and if you want more points to spend, you can take a couple of flaws or challenges to make things interesting! Once you're done in a setting, you have a choice of going home to IRL, staying in the setting for the rest of your days, or going to a new "jump". The goal is to reach the final jump of either DBZ or Warhammer 40k, complete that, and get a "spark", which basically equates to godhood. If you're interested, just google "Pokemon Jumpchain", and if you see a reddit post mentioning CYOA then you've found it—read the image with the rules, and get to writing.**_

 _ **That being said, I'm taking a few liberties with the usual setup and rules to make things more interesting, but not straying TOO much. And don't worry about Call of the Force—I'm still working on that, too. With that out of the way, let's see how well I fare in the greatest fanfic challenge of all time, Jumpchain!**_

 _ **...I'm not optimistic.**_

* * *

Hello there! You seem to have stumbled into my little spinning dartboard game. Who am I? No one of importance.

Well, actually, that's not completely true.

Okay, okay, it's not true at all.

Basically, I'm what you'd call a self-made god (Small "g"). I used to be more or less like you, until some random omnipotent being took me from my old life and started me on a jumpchain for his own damn amusement. And now that I'm done with jumping and have my spark, I'm getting bored enough with godhood that I've decided to play that role this time, also for my own damn amusement. But if you guys want to read along, go ahead—I'll make sure to keep my victim's life interesting enough to please you guys.

Yes. That's right, fanfic readers. I break the fourth wall. One of the perks of being a god (BTW, you, yes you, the guy with the bag of Cheetos and no pants. Put the pants back on, now. I've seen some terrible shit in my time as a jumper and even _I'm_ kind of disturbed by that. And yes, I can see you through your screen).

Aaaanyway, the problem with choosing someone to jump is that there are surprisingly quite a large number of people who'd be enjoyable to watch, so I used my newfound omniscience to make a list. Unfortunately, that list still had a shitload of people on it, so I made the biggest dartboard ever and am about to throw one and see who the unlucky bastard/bitch is...

Oh.

Oh boy. This one is going to be _so_ much fun. Let's have a look at our contestant, shall we?

31-going-on-32, life stalled, no job, total virgin, and a life full of first-world-problems that collectively made him wish for something interesting to happen to him (what a dumb wish that is, heheheh).

Now, even as a small-g god, I could easily just toss him right into Warhammer 40k and see him get immediately ripped apart by demons and whatnot. But since all the jumpchain people are so darn rigid with their rules, I'll humor them and give him the traditional Pokemon start. With a _teeeeeensy_ little twist. Here, I'll give you the rundown of his start, because while I'm a dickish god, I'm a _benevolent_ dickish god and I'm nice like that.

* * *

 **START DETAILS:**

 **Region:** Unova

 **Age:** 13

 **Background/Identity:** **Poke-Raised** (Yes, it's custom, but functionally identical to the Hermit start aside from the life details. Oh, and he won't remember a damn thing about his old life until the end of this first jump; you don't approve, screw you, I'm a god, deal with it).

 _Abandoned as an infant, you were found by wild pokemon and raised among them in a wildlife preserve (a la the Kangaskhan Kid in the original anime). You have come to learn a lot about survival skills, and you get along very well with wild pokemon. However, as your contact with other humans thus far has been limited to the occasional ranger or rogue trainer, your social skills are rather stunted and you have trouble with humans, let alone cities. Deciding to go explore the world and learn more about human society at the urging of a pokemon ranger who works at the preserve, you bid farewell to your adoptive family-save for one of your adoptive siblings, who followed you as you left, intent on joining you on your journey._

 **Starter:** Chimchar

 **Skills/Abilities:**

 **Survival Training** — _You gain an innate knowledge of survival skills; you can survive just about anywhere._

 **PokeGlot** — _You can talk to Pokemon! They're smart enough to hold a conversation, trained ones being smarter, but they don't think the way humans do. You also pick up new languages very quickly._

 **Ranger** — _You gain insight into the instincts of wild pokemon, as well as tracking skills._

 **Combat Training** — _You gain mastery of hand-to-hand combat. You can also keep your cool in a fight._

 **Physical Fitness** — _You gain a body that is healthy and strong. Not Captain America strong, but close._

 **Freerunning** — _You can pull off acrobatic feats that very few humans and not many pokemon could match._

 **Pokemon Moves (Replaces Aura)** — _You can use pokemon moves! You start out with just four, but you can learn more and improve their effectiveness through training._

 **Gear:**

50 Pokedollars

 **Flaws:**

 **Marked** — _Something has caused the local criminal group to mark you as a target. They will relentlessly hunt you down._

 **Hunted** — _A side effect of my sending you into to this world has caused a Legendary Pokemon to take notice. If it finds you it will kill you, and it can't be caught even with a Master Ball._

* * *

Well there you have it. This should be rather interesting. BTW, I'll be talking **~((like this))~** from time to time in this story. Oh, and one last thing: Captain Cheetos, PUT THOSE PANTS BACK ON RIGHT NOW, or you're next. And you won't be getting no damn Pokemon start, if you know what I mean.

* * *

 **WHITE MOUNTAIN RANGE NATIONAL PARK & POKEMON WILDLIFE RESERVE**

 **Between Nacrene City and White Forest, Unova**

I awaken with a groan and a bit of confusion. Where am I? What are these furry things pressed against me? What—

 **~((Whoops! Hehe, forgot to wipe his old memories. There we go!))~**

Huh? Oh, that's right. My troop decided to sleep in this cave last night and I slept in my usual spot, snuggled between Mom and my brother Heart-Blaze. I carefully stand up to stretch and yawn, hoping to avoid waking anyone else up. Looking out the mouth of the cave, I see the sun rising over the land below, where the forest at the foot of the mountain range meets what the humans call Pinwheel Forest. I sit there for a while, occasionally scratching myself; today is the day that human ranger said he'd come over.

Now, I know I wasn't born into the troop; Mom found me as a... human hatchling? Baby! Yeah, that's what they call them. Since the humans who gave birth to me weren't anywhere to be found, she adopted me. But this has been my whole life; as far as I'm concerned, I'm a chimchar like Heart-Blaze, even though I'll never be an Infernape like Mom and Dad. The only connections I really have to humans are the rags I wear (Mom took some sheets off of some human camper's clothesline. Humans don't have fur of their own to keep them warm in winter; if not for that detail, I wouldn't bother with clothes at all) and a little bit of the human language one of the human park rangers taught me.

Mom and Dad and all the other Infernapes in the troop told us kids not to go near humans, except for the rangers—and Mom and Dad in particular didn't want me going near them for fear of them taking me away, at least at first. Thankfully, the rangers realized I already had a family and let me stay, but from time to time they'd visit to check on me; one of them started teaching me to talk like a human. It's weird how many sounds humans use to communicate, but for some reason I picked it up real fast.

 **-"Good** **morning** , **Little-Fire!"-**

I turn at Dad's voice; he's the troop leader, so he's Dad to most of us kids. He's also the one who chooses our names; Little-Fire is the one he gave me. He wraps me in a hug—which I return, until he starts mussing up my head-fur, which I _hate_. I manage to pull away while he chuckles at me.

 **-"Ugh! Daaaaad!"-**

 **-"Sorry, my boy, I couldn't resist. Did you rest well?"-**

 **-"Yeah, I guess. Blaze kept kicking me in his sleep like he always does, though..."-**

I look over to my brother, still shifting in his sleep even though the rest of the troop is already waking up; Mom looks a bit annoyed by his lack of response to her usual attempts to shake him awake. She gives Dad a look, then both turn to me, Dad breaking the silence.

 **-"Well, since it's your turn to wake him up, might as well get a bit of revenge out of it!"-**

I grin mischievously, clambering over to him as quietly as I can... then promptly wake him up with a playful Fire Kick to the rump.

 **-"AAAAHHHH! Druddigon attack! Run before he eats—"-**

He stops panicking long enough to see me rolling around on my back, laughing and kicking my feet in the air.

 **-"That's not funny, Fire!"-**

I can't stop laughing even though I know I ought to. **-"Hahaha! Look out, Blaze, a Druddigon's gonna eat you! Hahahahaha!"-**

With a growl, he leaps on me and we start our usual morning rough-house routine until Mom makes us stop to help the troop go foraging for berries. For us fire-and-fight-types, sparring comes before breakfast—followed by more sparring, then more eating, then whatever else needs doing until the next time we eat or spar before we find a place to sleep. I hear that humans live a lot more complicated lives than us; half of me is curious about that, but to be perfectly honest, I can't imagine anything better than what I have now. Which is why I feel more than a little nervous today. I am officially thirteen summers old, at least based on when Mom found me. Thirteen summers; that's when chimchar are supposed to leave the troop to form their own troops. For me, though, that means something a bit different, something I've been both anticipating and dreading the moment I found out about it.

It means that I'll have to leave the troop and try to explore the humans' troop lands. Which means that I'll have to give up a lot of what it means to be a pokemon...

 **-"HUMAN TRAINER! HIDE!"-**

The shout came from a Monferno who had been keeping watch from the treetops; without a second to spare, we all climb up into the trees ourselves, remaining still as stone. The human in question is rather rough-looking, and obviously knows that this isn't his troop's territory. Under normal circumstances, an intruder would be dealt with by the whole troop attacking until they ran off, but human trainers were different; they have what we call hold-berries, because they throw the berry-shaped objects at you and you disappear into it, held prisoner until the human decides to let you out. Humans call them Pokeballs, according to the human rangers. They said that most trainers aren't bad, but that any trainer coming here was against the rules of the human troops around our territory.

Unfortunately, one of the younger kids accidentally falls out of the tree, right in the line of sight of the trainer.

"Well, well! Looks like I hit the jackpot already!"

The whole troop gets ready to attack the human—hold-berry or not, every member in the troop is both friend and family, and we don't let anything happen to each other if we can help it! The trainer starts to throw the hold-berry... only for a weird tentacle-thing to fly out of the bushes, wrap around the hold-berry, and pull it away.

"Hold it right there! You're under arrest!"

Another human steps out of the woods, taking the hold-berry and putting it into his back-pouch—er, backpack. The tentacle thing is one of those human-vine things—whips, I think. We all breathe a sigh of relief, because we know this human.

The intruder tries to run, only for the ranger to use his whip to grab the guy's legs and make him faceplant the ground, hard; the ranger walks over and takes some hold-vines—handcuffs, I think they're called—and puts them on the intruder's wrists before speaking into the talk-thing and calling for the rest of his troop to take the intruder away. With the danger over, we all leave the trees and greet the ranger.

The kid who fell immediately runs over to him, climbing on his head and shouting in joy. **-"Rick! It's Rick!"-**

Rick laughs in response. "Okay, okay, you're welcome! It's nice to see you too!" He looks around, then spots me. "Oh! Kenny! There you are!"

I don't know where he got it, but he calls me "Ken" or "Kenny" because he can't understand how we speak well enough to know my real name. I move over to him and hug his knees. "Rick! You come in nick time!"

"In _the_ nick _of_ time, kiddo." He chuckles a bit. I sometimes forget that humans use those weird "linking" sounds between words.

"Okay, okay, in THE nick OF time. You humans have too many sounds when you talk," I say, shaking my head. "Are you here to say goodbye? You know it's my day to leave the troop..."

"Actually, that's only half the reason. The other half is in my backpack..." He takes the backpack off and sets it in front of him, opening the main pouch to reveal... clothes?

I tilt my head in confusion. "Uhhh... what do you like me to do with those?"

"In that sentence, it's _want_ , not _like_ ," he says, handing the clothes to me. "As for what I want you to do with them... well, if you're going to go on a journey, you'll need to dress like we do. Humans don't wear rags."

"But I'm not _really_ human!" I say with a frown. After a few minutes, I realize that he won't take no for an answer—besides, rangers may not be from our troop, but they're honorary troop members and you don't refuse a gift from a troop member. Sighing, I take off my rags and start putting on the clothes, ignoring the wide-eyed look he gets and how quickly he turns around (another weird thing about humans that I don't get is their obsession with hiding themselves). It takes a bit for me to figure it out, but I finally get "dressed", and stand upright. The clothes consisted of a red... armless upper-rag, a blue over-top-rag with arms, black leg-rags, and orange foot-rags. Most of it doesn't bother me too much... but Arceus, does it feel weird having these things on my back feet.

"Hey, don't worry, Kenny! You look great!"

 _Says you,_ I think to myself. _I'm taking these awful foot-traps off me the second you're out of sight._

That thought stops me in my mental tracks; this really is it, isn't it? I turn to the rest of the troop, squatting down to their level one last time and hugging each of them in turn. I give Mom and Dad an extra-long hug. Mom cries a bit and I can't help but tear up a little too.

 **-"You'll always be our baby, Little-Fire."-**

 **-"And you'll always be my mother. I'll make the best troop ever, and I'll come back and visit one day—I promise."-**

Blaze hops over with a sad grin before turning to Mom and Dad, giving them hugs of his own. Normally, the Thirteenth Summer was a journey you did on your own, but from time to time it was done in pairs; Blaze refused to let me go unless he got to go with me.

 **-"Your mother and I are so proud of you two. Keep your brother safe, Heart-Blaze."-**

 **-"I won't leave his side for a minute, Dad."-**

A few more tear-filled goodbye hugs later, I stand upright again; Blaze jumps onto my shoulder, and together we follow Rick as he leads us out of the park and into the human-troop lands.

* * *

 _ **Well, I hope I've piqued your interest in Jumpchain with this. If you want to write a new and different kind of fic, try it out sometime. In the meantime, read and review if you can!**_


	2. Insert Tarzan Yell Here

**A/N:** ** _In case you're wondering why I've added a new chapter so soon, it's because—as I said in the author's note for the first chapter—this was initially posted on Spacebattles._**

* * *

"Well, here we are: The edge of the park and the beginning of your journey!" Rick waves his hand across the scene in front of us; Blaze and I aren't impressed.

"It looks like the rest of the forest, except for the... hm. Long-clearing?" I look up at Rick for clarification.

He chuckles. "It's got a few names. When it's just dirt or tiny stones like this, it's called a 'path'. When it's made of really hard black stuff with yellow stripes, it's a 'road'—walk on the outside of those, otherwise human vehicles might hit you—and when they go a long way and link two cities together, it's called a 'route' and given a number. Remember that last part—humans use that to help give directions."

 _Humans and their billion useless sounds._ "Okay, I'll try to remember that. Which way should I go?"

"Well, if you follow this road East—that's the direction the sun rises from—you'll hit Striaton City. Trainers in this part of the region start their journey there," Rick says, pointing in the direction indicated. "You're new to that, though, so you might want to head a bit South of there—that's to the right of you if you face East—and head for Accumula Town. There's someone waiting for you at the pokemon center there; she has a few things that should help you on your travels. You'll know her when you see her, I think."

He'd explained the whole trainer journey thing to me a couple of summers ago; I have mixed feelings about it. The fight-type in me likes the idea of going around and testing your strength against tough opponents; the rest of me doesn't exactly approve of the way humans let their pokemon fight their battles for them. Why not do the fighting yourself?

Before I can say anything else, he gives me a backpack and a small folded thick-rag with little pouches inside it. "The wallet has about 50 pokedollars in it; you'll need those to trade for supplies and food in the towns and cities you'll pass through. The bag has a few potions for healing you when you're hurt, and five pokeballs—"

I almost drop the backpack. " _Hold-berries?_ You're giving me those?!"

"They're called pokeballs—"

"Fine. Hold-balls, then."

He puts his hand on his face. "I know you don't like it, but it's just the way things are. If you don't have those, you can't catch new pokemon for your team."

"I DON'T CARE!" I bare my teeth a bit as I yell. "I am _never_ using those. If other pokemon want to join me, they can if they want to, but I won't _make_ them follow me. Blaze isn't going in one, and neither will anyone else."

I open the backpack and dump the pokeballs out, still baring my teeth a bit. Then I notice how worried he looks, and I calm down. Much as I don't like what he gave me, I like Rick and I don't want to scare him. "Sorry..."

He sighs and gives me a smile. "It's alright, kiddo. I should have known better. I'm sorry I hurt your feelings about it." A few moments pass before he speaks up again. "Anyway, you might want to avoid the teeth-baring thing going forward. Take care, Kenny!"

With a nod, I start to make my way South... only for Rick to stop me one last time. "Kenny... upright."

 _I will never get used to the way humans move..._

* * *

Bianca couldn't believe herself. Getting lost on such a short road like Route 1? As if that weren't enough, Cheren wasn't anywhere to be seen. He was probably going on without her, thinking about what an airhead she was. She shook her head at the thought; _No, don't panic._ _Cheren wouldn't leave me behind. And he should to be able to find me. Besides, I chose to be a trainer, and I won't get far if I let this stop me!_

There were trees everywhere she looked, and tall grass all over the place. "I might as well try catching a few pokemon while I wait..." She stopped when she heard a strange chittering sound coming from a pond nearby; getting on the ground and crawling as quietly as she could, she almost gasped in excitement when she saw a chimchar drinking happily from the pond. _Those are super-rare here in Unova!_ Mustering her courage, she slowly stood, aimed, and threw the pokeball at the unsuspecting pokemon.

"CHIMCHAR-CHIM!"

"HUH?!"

A red-and-blue blur shot out of the trees, knocking the ball out of the way before stopping between her and the chimchar. The figure was a boy about her age with long black hair and brown eyes, crouching in an odd way and baring his teeth. He also had no shoes. Turning from her to look at the chimchar, his face softened. "Char! Chim chim char chim?"

To her amazement, the little fire-type seemed to actually understand, nodding in relief before turning its gaze back to her along with the strange boy.

"W-who are you? How did you—"

"Leave him alone, trainer! Take your hold-balls somewhere else!"

Bianca paused for a few moments before realizing her mistake. "OH! Is this your chimchar? I'm so sorry! I never would have tried if I'd known!"

A tense silence passed, the boy gazing directly at her as if to read her like a book. Finally, he sighed, standing upright as the chimchar leapt to his shoulders. "Alright... I believe you. You have nice eyes."

Bianca couldn't help but blush at the rather candid statement.

 **~((Well, at least that's better than "I hate sand." There may be hope for this guy after all!))~**

"Ah! Um, er, I m-mean, I g-guess I'm... uh, thank you?" The confused tilt of the boy's head shook her out of her nervousness; giving a friendly smile, she held out her hand to him. "O-okay, let's start again. I'm Bianca! What's your name?"

His response was to immediately give her a full-on hug. "I'm Ken! Nice to meet you!"

 **~((Nevermind, he's toast.))~**

The sound of a hand hitting a face could be heard for about a mile.

"Bianca? There you are! I was looking... all... over..." Cheren's words faded away as he entered the clearing, gazing in befuddlement at the boy on the ground with the handprint on his cheek, his friend frozen stiff in shock with her hands at her side, her face tomat-berry-red.

Cheren finally broke the silence as he walked over to Bianca. "Hey, what happened? Are you okay? And for that matter," he said, turning towards the newcomer on the ground rubbing his cheek, "Who are you, and what did you do to her?!"

The boy in question stared back in what seemed to be genuine confusion. "I don't know! All I did was say hi..."

"He... he..."

"Bianca? What did he do?"

"He hugged me..."

Cheren turned angrily to the stranger. "What?!"

"Yeah, I did, but I thought—"

"You 'thought' wrong, then! You're a pervert!" Bianca's face was still utterly red as she finally broke out of her shock.

"What in the world is going on here? I heard shouting..."

All eyes turned to the bushes from which Cheren had come; standing in plain sight was a tall ginger woman in a white coat.

"Professor Juniper," Bianca said with surprise. "What are you doing all the way out here? Did you come to find me?"

"'All the way out here'? Bianca, don't you know where you are? The Accumula Town Pokemon center is just behind those trees!"

Bianca felt her rage drain into utter embarrassment. _I can't believe this..._

Professor Juniper was about to say something when she noticed the boy on the ground; her eyes widened in recognition. "Oh my! Is that you, Ken?"

EVERY eye now turned to the boy, who pointed back at Juniper with surprise on his face. "Wait, I know you! You're that lady that showed up that one time when I was bad-feel! You're the one I was supposed to meet?"

"That's 'sick', Ken. I got word from Ranger Rick that you were on your way, but it's still quite surprising to see you here!"

Bianca and Cheren turned their gaze back to the professor. "Wait, what's going on? You KNOW this pervert?"

"Pervert? What did he do?"

"HE HUGGED ME!" Bianca said angrily before clapping her mouth shut in utter embarrassment.

Ken responded with utter confusion. "Hey, what's the big deal?! What's wrong with that?"

"Hahaha! It seems there's been a bit of a cultural misunderstanding here," Juniper laughed before walking over to Ken and kneeling to where he was. "Ken, humans don't usually _hug_ unless they're _very_ good friends. They greet each other by grasping each other's hands and moving them up and down. It's called a handshake."

It took a few seconds of looking at Ken's own embarrassed reaction to the explanation before Cheren finally put two and two together. "Wait... I think I know what's going on! He's poke-raised!"

"He is indeed, Cheren. Quite observant of you. Ken here," she said, indicating the boy in question "was found by the Infernapes in the wildlife preserve nearby when he was a baby and was raised by them. The park rangers didn't take him away when they found him a few years later because he was healthy and too used to the troop to be reintroduced to human society without gradually educating him about it, so they simply visited from time to time to teach him how to read and talk like we do. This morning was the first time he ever set foot outside the wild."

Bianca looked at Ken, realizing her own mistake. "So... when he hugged me..."

"I really _was_ just saying hi. Troop gives hugs to troop, but also hugs to... not-threats? Troop-nice? Er... not-troop but—"

Cheren snapped his fingers. "Friends! Is that what you're saying?"

Ken nodded. "Yeah, that's the word. She was nice to me, but she's not troop, so..."

"'Troop' is the word for a group of primate-type-pokemon," Juniper explained. "For him, that means an extended family. But in the wild, there's not much social complexity; you're family, or the enemy, or a friend. Simple nice acquaintances don't usually come up."

Ken stood up and slowly approached Bianca, looking down in shame. "I'm sorry. I didn't know. Are we... friends, still?"

A few moments of silence passed before Bianca sighed. "Y-yeah... I guess. Like you said, you didn't know any better."

Cheren walked over to Ken and held his hand out. "I guess you'll need to get used to this way of greeting people. My name's Cheren—I'm Bianca's friend."

It took Ken a few moments to figure out how the handshake worked, but aside from having a rather strong grip he managed to get it right. "And I'm Ken. Sorry to meet you two like this..."

"Like I said, it's fine," Bianca said. "By the way, is this one of the chimchar from your home? What's it called?"

As the pokemon in question leapt onto Ken's shoulder, he winced slightly in annoyance. "He's my brother, and HIS name is chimcharchim." At the raised eyebrows and silence, he decided to translate. "Umm... 'Heart-Blaze'. My name in the troop is... uh, 'Little-Fire', but the rangers all called me Ken for some reason. Some person from a story about fighting or something, I think."

Bianca leaned over to the chimchar. "Hi Blaze! Oh, he's cute!"

* * *

 **-"'Oooh, Blaze, you're SOOO cute!' Not one day into our journey and you already have a female looking at you!"-**

 **-"THAT WASN'T EVEN FUNNY THE FIRST TIME, FIRE! Besides, she's human! And definitely not my type."-**

I'm walking alongside my new friends into the human troop-land called "Accumula Town". I'm still not used to all the big not-trees around here, and the rock-like stuff they use for their ground feels weird on my feet. Professor Juniper left to do some human stuff elsewhere and asked Cheren and Bianca to show me around. Even after all that just happened, they're still being really nice to us...

 **-"Hey, Blaze? If you think about it, aren't we already forming a new troop? Maybe if we're nice enough to them for long enough, they'll be part of our new troop!"-**

Blaze looks at me with confusion before getting it. **-"Oh, yeah! I mean, they're human, but that hasn't stopped you from being one of us! They've got a lot to learn before they can live like we do, though. But I guess if they can teach YOU, we can teach _them_."-**

I nod before turning back to my new friends and potential troop members as they continue explaining human society to me. Now that I'm hearing it from them, the idea of a trainer journey doesn't sound all that terrible; I still don't like the idea of using hold-berries, but then shortly after we introduced ourselves, they let me meet the pokemon who travel with them. Their pokemon friends clearly don't mind at all; in fact, they're almost as excited as their humans. _Maybe Blaze and I can tag along and try this 'badge' journey..._

Suddenly, we all stop when a big group of humans rush by us toward what they call a 'plaza'.

"What's all this about?" Cheren says. "C'mon, let's go see!"

Following his lead, we come to an even bigger crowd of humans gathered around more humans, but these ones are wearing even stranger rags than the ones I'm wearing. One of the last group—clearly the troop leader from the way he moves and walks—steps forward and starts speaking.

"My name is Ghetsis," he says. "I am here representing Team Plasma. Today, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to talk to you about Pokemon liberation."

I turn to Bianca and whisper. "What's that last word?"

"'Liberation'. It means being set free, let loose, something like that."

 _He wants to free pokemon...?_

Ghetsis continues. "I'm sure most of you believe that we humans and Pokemon are partners that have come to live together because we want and need each other. However... is that _really_ the truth? have you ever considered that we humans... only _assume_ that this is the truth?"

I quietly translate for Blaze as Ghetsis talks. Blaze whispers back. **-"That all sounds nice, even great. I'd get behind that in a heartbeat if half the things Mom and Dad told us about trainers in general are true. But we've met good humans already, and besides... there's something not right about that human's eyes and the way he moves."-**

 **-"You're right," I respond. "He's got bad eyes. I don't think he means any of it, not really."-**

After a while, Ghetsis stops talking, and he and his troop leave. The town-humans all seem to be thinking hard about what he said. As Cheren, Bianca, and I start to leave, another human steps in. This one is different from any human I've ever met.

 **-"Now who's this one? Is he gonna be our friend, too? He's got nice eyes..."-**

The new human looks at Blaze with surprise. "Your pokemon... Just now, it was saying..."

Cheren is about to interrupt, but I stop him and talk before he can. "Wait, you can understand him, too?"

"'Too'...? Hmm..." He looks me over closely. "Wait... are you poke-raised?"

I light up quite a bit. This is the first human I've met who's like me! I'm so excited that I slip and start talking normally. **-"Yeah! Wow, I knew you didn't seem like all the other humans here! Were you poke-raised, too?"-**

He laughs. "No, I wasn't raised by pokemon. But I've lived alongside pokemon since I was little... they're practically family to me. I feel more kinship with them than I do with other humans."

For a moment, I'm not sure how to greet him. If he knows about pokemon, he'll probably understand a hug, but at the same time he's more human than I am, and we're surrounded by humans. In the end, I decide to do the human greeting and hold out my hand to him. **-"My name's Little-Fire, but the humans call me Ken, or Kenny."-**

He shakes my hand and smiles. "I am called N. For a moment, I thought I would need to test all of you to see if your bonds with your pokemon were true or not... but if they travel with you and are as understanding with you as I suspect, then I doubt there's any need. I hope we meet again. Farewell!"

N leaves us; Cheren and Bianca are quiet and don't quite know how to react, but I can't help but keep smiling. Maybe it won't be so difficult to find a troop out here after all!

 **~((Ugh, how boring. I might have to give a few... "suggestions" to Ghetsis to make things more interesting. And while I'm at it...))~**

* * *

Somewhere across the world, a mysterious pokemon meditated in a cave, surrounded by the corpses of various trainers. "Humans... first, they twist and forge me into a weapon. Then they try to capture me. And now I find that they have brainwashed and captured pokemon for their own purposes? Unacceptable."

 **~((I could not agree more, my child.))~**

Suddenly, a vision appeared before the pokemon, a vision of blinding light and divine power so great it almost overwhelmed him; before he could respond, the light formed into the shape that he had never seen before, yet instantly knew the identity of. "Arceus... you are Arceus!"

 **~((I am. And you... you will be my champion among all my children, so long as you accomplish one task to prove your worth and loyalty. There is one human who defiles the name of pokemon everywhere by daring to masquerade as if he were one of us. You must travel to Unova and seek him out; hunt him in my name, and not only will you be greatly rewarded with all of my blessings, I will make you the savior of all our kind.))~**

There was no denying a God. He would liberate his kind from humanity and remove this insult to his people from existence. With a respectful nod, Mewtwo accepted his charge, ready to begin his task.

* * *

 _ **Yeah, like the description of this fic says, this god is SERIOUSLY a jerk. And this won't be the only time he interferes like this. If you fave or follow, please leave a review with any comments or criticisms!**_


	3. Running from Shoes

After N leaves, the four of us turn to leave when Professor Juniper runs up to us with four packages, three small and plain, one a weird box with strange glitter-color-vines tied around it.

"Hi, Professor!" Bianca says cheerfully, "What's all that you're carrying?"

The Professor smiles. "Oh, just some things I needed to give all of you. Here," she says, handing each of us one of the three small plain packages. We open them to find weird human devices inside; one looks like a red rectangle with a small square on top, the other looks similar to one of those human-wrist-things that they use to tell time so they don't have to go by the sun. My box also has a thin piece of hard-human-writing-leaf in a rectangular shape with some writing on it. "Cheren, Bianca, I was going to give these to you when you first left home, but when Ranger Rick called me and told me about Ken, I thought the three of you might be interested in travelling together; so, with that in mind, I thought it might feel more special if you all received them at the same time!"

We all put the wrist-things on, though it takes me a bit longer to figure it out. "Those," Juniper says, "are called Cross-Transceivers. They'll allow us to talk to each other from anywhere at any time, as a group. They also keep time like normal watches, as well as contain a map of the region. The other device is a Pokedex—Kenny, that's a human device with a list and description of pokemon in it, a rather traditional gift for a trainer starting on their journey—so that you can catalog information on any pokemon you encounter. I also included a Trainer ID card for Ken here so he can join you guys on your journey!"

On Blaze's look, I give him a translation; it doesn't take long for him to get it. **-"Okay, that trainer device kind of makes sense for them. We could always just ASK the other pokemon about themselves, but humans can't speak our language."-**

"So, what's with the fancy box with cheap store ribbons on it?"

"I'm glad you asked, Cheren." Juniper smiles. "These I bought just a few minutes ago. They're a little gift for Kenny. Here, open it!"

I take the package with a smile. The "ribbons" come off rather easily, and my excitement builds as I take off the top... only for my excitement to vanish once I see what's in there.

"Shoes?"

"Yup!" Juniper nods. "I noticed that you've been going barefoot; I know Rick gave you a pair along with the clothes you're wearing, but since you apparently lost them I figured you'd like another pair just like them! What happened to them, by the way?"

I grunt a bit. "I got rid of them."

"What? Why would you do that?"

"Because shoes are stupid and I don't like them."

"Kenny," Juniper says, "humans wear shoes. It's just what we do—"

"Well, I'm not human, so that's fine! The stuff I'm already wearing is enough."

Cheren raises an eyebrow. "So what if you step on something sharp and hard, like a rock?"

"There's plenty of rocks and sharp things on the ground in the wild! You just build strong feet!"

"But Ken," Bianca pleads, "they're really nice-looking, and The Professor bought them for you—"

"Don't care!" **-"I'm not wearing foot-rags!"-** I also don't care that I'm slipping into regular speech.

Juniper sighs. "Just try them on for a bit—"

"NO!" **-"No foot-rags!"-** I jump into a tree, only to see Blaze on the branch next to me laughing at me and taunting me in a singsong voice.

 **-"Fire's afraid of foot-rags! Fire's afraid of foot-rags!"-**

 **-"SHUT UP!"-** I turn back to the others. "I'm not wearing them!"

It isn't long before our argument starts drawing attention from passing humans, but I don't care. Then they give up the fight because it's starting to get dark and I know I won, but Blaze won't stop laughing. And to be honest, I'm too tired myself to argue with him as the others lead me to the Pokemon Center, which gives free "room and board" to trainers once they show the "Trainer ID card" to the staff. After a bit of searching, we find the right room, opening the door to reveal three beds.

"Ahhh!" Cheren says, yawning and stretching. "I suppose this is the sort of accommodation we can expect for the rest of our journey. Can't wait to try out those beds."

Bianca sits on one. "Yeah. It's weird, though; we're out on our own now, and we won't be seeing our own bedrooms for a good long time. I guess this means it's officially started... speaking of which," she says, turning to me and Blaze, "have you decided whether or not to come with us and collect badges?"

I nod happily. "Yeah. Blaze and I are fight-types, so any excuse for sparring or training or some other competition is pretty exciting. Besides, we're already on a journey of our own."

"The 'Thirteenth Summer' you told us about earlier, right?" Cheren asks. "That makes sense. If you're going to be travelling anyway, we'd be happy for you to travel alongside us!"

I nod before going to lie down alongside Blaze, pressing together for warmth and comfort as we usually do. We barely have the chance to close our eyes before Bianca speaks up. "Um... what are you doing on the floor?"

Blaze and I wake up early the next morning; I have to admit, beds aren't that bad—they're really soft and comfy, in fact—but at the same time, not having hard ground made it difficult to get used to. For the first few minutes it felt like I was sinking or something, but it didn't take long for sleep to overpower that feeling. Cheren and Bianca are both still sleeping, though, so Blaze and I decide to go outside for a bit and train for the journey while we wait for them to get up (strange how long humans sleep in, really. Back home, you got up with the sun). We find the spot where we met the others and start stretching before launching into the usual play-fight.

Since I'm a lot bigger than Blaze, our fights tended to be less grappling-based than the rest of the troop; instead, we focused on punching and kicking. Blaze may be smaller, but he's fast and still strong enough to give me some good blows, and at the same time he's tough enough to take some of mine (one of the benefits of being fight-types is our toughness and pain tolerance, a benefit I have even though I was born human). It's not long before we start laughing; it's a good thing we went outside, because I'm sure the humans around here wouldn't want us to wake them up with that. We seem to lose all track of time, because we almost don't notice Bianca and Cheren when they finally find us.

"Hey, there you guys areWHAT?!" Cheren's sudden surprised shout makes us stop. I turn to look at him with confusion.

"Did we do something wrong?"

Bianca's pointing at me. "Y-y-your hand's on fire!"

"Well, sure, it's Fire Punch!"

"Ken, humans aren't supposed to be able to do that—or at least, it's never been documented! This is incredible..."

I think about it for a moment or two. It never seemed strange to me or the troop that I could do it, but Cheren has a point. I wasn't really human in my mind or heart, but I know that I was born a human, and it makes sense that humans wouldn't be able to do that normally since they use the stuff they made to do stuff for them. Maybe it was the way I was raised and trained?

A few more moments pass before Cheren perks up a bit. "Hey, I have an idea! Keep going, and I'll use the pokedex to film you a bit for documentary purposes!"

"Docu...?"

"I want to be able to look at it and study it later."

Oh. That makes sense. Blaze and I pick up where we left off, but after a while we start to get hungry; Cheren and Bianca take out some human breakfast they got "to go" from the Pokemon Center, while Blaze and I pick berries from the nearby bushes. I do try some of the food Cheren and Bianca offer, and it tastes pretty good—when I add the berries on top, it tastes even better! Finally, we finish eating and make our way to the road out of town, on our way to the next city for our first badge fight. As we leave, I catch Professor Juniper running up to me with another box, shaped not-too-differently from the shoe box.

"I said I'm not wearing—"

"Don't worry, Kenny. I understand. This isn't a shoe box; I think you'll find this present a little more tolerable."

I open it to find two human head-wrap-tie-rags, both red, one smaller than the other.

"These headbands are for you and Blaze. Not only do they match, but Blaze's has an added feature I invented for use by trainers who don't put their pokemon in pokeballs; I know you don't like those, but a pokeball also protects Blaze from being stolen. His headband has a device sewn into it that makes pokeballs not work when thrown at him. Since you and he are brothers... I figured it'd be nice for you to have a matching one like his, Kenny."

I explain to Blaze; he seems to like it. **-"Normally I wouldn't even think of wearing human-rags, but this actually does make us look pretty cool, and I like the idea of not having to worry about hold-berries!"-**

"Thank you, Professor. Sorry about the shoe argument—"

"Don't be. I should have thought about your feelings. Good luck on your journey!"

Blaze and I wave goodbye as we follow Bianca and Cheren.

* * *

"Your Majesty," Ghetsis said with a bow, "I see you are doing well this morning."

N nodded. "Thank you, Ghetsis. What can I do for you?"

 **~((Anything interesting yesterday.))~**

"Did you find anything interesting in Accumula town yesterday?"

 **~((Poke-raised boy.))~**

"I did indeed. I met a boy in town who I think was poke-raised; he and his chimchar were quite friendly. I am glad for the encounter; it is rare to find anyone outside our organization that truly sees pokemon as equals."

 **~((Remember them.))~**

Ghetsis' mind turned to the past; he hadn't thought of _them_ in a while.

 **~((The boy N met.))~**

He didn't know why, but the boy N met reminded him of them. _Could it be...?_

* * *

The road from Accumula Town to Striaton City was longer than expected, and in anticipation of the gym battle they would soon face, the trio decided to make camp early in an out-of-the-way area to rest, plan, and train. The former two went well, Bianca explaining the details on how pokemon battles went to Ken and Blaze while Cheren considered possible strategies for dealing with the Leaders of the Striaton Gym. Training started off well; Cheren's Oshawott and Bianca's Snivy quickly got used to practicing with Blaze, but Ken started feeling left out due to being human.

That's when things got interesting. The four of them conversed in poke-speak, and at some point Ken somehow convinced Oshawott to try a water-gun on him, the result being rather unpleasant for the former. Once Ken dried off, though, the training went off the rails completely, going from practice to play in a rather odd manner. Now, Cheren and Bianca watched as the three pokemon and the poke-raised human chased each other around the clearing, jumped in and out of bushes, and climbed trees, laughing and chattering in poke-speak all the while.

That being said, they couldn't afford to simply play all the time when their first major test as trainers was just a day away.

"I think that's probably enough playing. We need to get back to training, and there's still strategy to consider—"

"Cheren," Bianca said with a smile, "I think it can wait. They look so happy, and who knows when any of us will get another chance to just relax like this?"

Cheren had to admit, seeing a human behaving and speaking like a pokemon was odd at first. But as the game wore on, Ken seemed less and less out-of-place to the point where he almost seemed like just another pokemon. _This must be the closest thing he has to home and family at the moment. It was hard enough for Bianca and me to leave our town, but Ken had to leave so much more behind; I can't imagine how much harder it was for him._

He turned to Bianca and returned the smile. "I guess we can let them go on a while longer..."


	4. Round One: FIGHT!

"So, Ken... out of curiosity, what's Snivy like?"

I turn to Bianca as we sit around the campfire. "Huh? What do you mean?"

"Well, I can't understand her," she explains. "I mean, I can _sort_ of see her personality in the way she acts, but I could be entirely wrong. But you can talk to her, so..."

I think back to the game I played with the other pokemon earlier before answering. "Well, her pokemon name is 'Emerald', and she's pretty nice. But she's also sort of... well, she likes to brag about her looks and stuff, and can be really sarcastic. Other than that, she's friendly and fun, though."

Bianca nods as I explain, fascinated. "What about Oshawott? Is he anything like Cheren?"

Cheren says nothing and just raises an eyebrow as he listens to me.

"His name is 'Riverclaw', and he's normally pretty quiet. He's not timid or anything, he just likes to talk with short words and sentences, and he's really calm. He knows lots of fun games, but he's the one who ends up deciding the rules. He's also pretty smart."

 **-"Better than I could say for you, Fire..."-**

I give Blaze a look at his comment. **-"Hey, I never saw a Water Gun attack before and I wanted to see if I could take it!"-**

 **-"Yeah, and you couldn't. But he did warn you."-**

I roll my eyes and turn back to the others. "So, since we'll be at this 'Gym' by tomorrow, what do you know about it, Cheren?"

"I'm glad you asked," He says, pushing his glasses up with his fingers. "Basically, there are three leaders in the Gym—one has a fire-type, one has a water-type, and one has a grass-type—and they're all graduates of the local school. They look at the pokemon you have, and then you have to fight the one with a pokemon that has a type advantage over yours. Basically, it's designed so that you can't just power through the fight; it's to force you to come up with a plan to overcome that weakness."

Bianca and I nod, taking it all in as I finish translating for Blaze. Cheren looks to each of us before continuing. "So, with that in mind, what do you guys have in mind for your fights?"

"Well, Snivy's fast and can tie things up with vine whip; maybe if she ties up the other pokemon, she can keep them from using their fire attacks."

"Good idea. Oshawott's got those scallops he uses as weapons, so if the enemy uses something like vine whip, he could probably catch them with those and counterattack. How about you, Ken? What do you and Blaze think?"

I talk to Blaze about it for a little bit, then smile at Cheren. "Well, we've had to fight the occasional water-type in the wild, and they're not quite as fast as fire-types. Blaze is pretty quick, so he thinks if he just rushes in and hits the other guy hard enough, he can end it early."

"Kind of straightforward, but it makes sense, I guess," Cheren replies. "Anyway, we ought to rest up—we'll probably arrive in Striaton close to noon if we start early enough."

With that, the others unroll their sleeping-bags while Blaze and I find a clear spot on the ground; it doesn't take long for us to fall asleep. Just like home.

* * *

As predicted, we make it to Striaton City by around mid-day; I had thought Accumula had impressive buildings, but evidently that was just standard for smaller human areas. Striaton is the first real "City" that I have ever seen, and while I had been told that those are larger than towns, I had no idea just HOW much larger they are until I look at the massive buildings rising to heights far taller than any tree, and humans as far as the eye could see. When Bianca tells me that Castelia City to the West makes this one look small, I almost can't believe her. Cheren sees how distracted I am by the surroundings and gets my attention with a shout I can barely hear over the countless sounds all happening at once—Blaze having even more difficulty dealing with that than me—before telling me that he's found the way to the Gym, where the first battle of our journey awaits.

Interestingly enough, it's also where our first lunch together on our journey happens; to my surprise, the gym doubles as a "restaurant", where humans come to eat in exchange for money. Blaze and I still find it odd that humans place so much value on slips of paper, but I suppose it beats spending an hour foraging and coming up short. At first, I get worried that we won't be allowed in, since—according to Ranger Rick, who explained the concept to me—most restaurants ask you to put your pokemon in their hold-berries before they'll let you in. Thankfully, since this is a Pokemon Gym as well as a restaurant, not only do they not have a problem with Blaze, there are plenty of humans and pokemon sharing their meals. Once we find a seat, the human serving us brings each of us a "menu", or a list of all the kinds of food and how much they cost. I can read thanks to the park rangers, but if not for the descriptions of all the meals, I don't think I would have been able to decide because plenty of the terms still escape me. In the end, I find something called a "Fajita", which according to the description is served hot; Blaze and I take that as a challenge of sorts, being Fire-types.

When the food comes, our dish is served on a metal plate, and not only is the plate hot to the touch, there's a CLOUD coming off of it!

"Whoa! How did they make a cloud?"

Cheren laughs. "It's called 'steam', Kenny. It's when water gets so hot that it stops being liquid."

 **-"Fire beating water? Huh,"-** Blaze says once I translate. **-"Maybe that's a good omen or something!"-**

I decide to grab some of the stuff and put it in my mouth; it's juicy and wonderful. Unfortunately, I quickly realize that I'm not supposed to eat like that here—Bianca and Cheren show me how to use the human tools to spear the food, put it on a flat bread-like thing, wrap it up, THEN grab it and eat it. Kind of strange, but I get the hang of it quickly. The others let Emerald and Riverclaw out of their hold-berries to eat with us, too. By the time we finish, we feel as ready and energized for the battle as we can be; we combine our money and pay—leaving a little extra called a "tip" for the waiter—and then look for wherever we're supposed to go to meet the Gym Leaders. Cheren asks someone, and they direct us to the back of the restaurant, through a pair of double doors and past the kitchen where the food is made. Another, larger set of double doors marks the entrance to the arena where the battle will take place.

The arena is pretty big, with a giant hold-berry-shaped pattern on the floor and lights shining down from the ceiling. On the other side of the room stand three humans; one of the humans has green hair, one has blue hair, and the third red hair. The Green-haired one speaks first.

"Welcome to the Striaton City Pokemon Gym! My name is Cilan; I use grass-type pokemon."

The red-haired human speaks next. "I'm Chili, and fire's my specialty!"

"My name is Cress," the blue one says, "And I'm a master of water pokemon. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that my opponent will be the one with the Chimchar on his shoulder."

I nod. "My name's Ken, and this is Heart-Blaze! Looking forward to it!"

"Well then, I suppose we can go first, then. Would the rest of you please move to the edge of the room?"

Cheren and Bianca do so as the Cilan and Chili move to the opposite edge; once everyone is in place, Cress tosses a hold-berry while shouting. "Wave, I choose you!"

The pokeball lands and releases the pokemon within: a Panpour. **-"Hi there! I'm Wave, and I'll be your opponent today!"-**

* * *

Cheren and Bianca watched from the sidelines as the fight began, a chime signalling the start of the match. Almost immediately, Blaze leapt into action, dashing forward with a Tackle. Cress and Wave clearly didn't expect him to be so fast, as the latter was struck almost before he even registered that Blaze had moved. The Panpour responded with Fury Swipes, but again Blaze's speed proved to be an asset as he dodged the counterattack and Tackled once more.

 _Straightforward and uncomplicated; that pretty much sums up Blaze's style, Cheren thought. But even I didn't expect him to be that fast._

Blaze once again pulled back after his strike, but this time Wave was ready and managed to land a blow with Fury Swipes again. The damage was minimal, however.

Ken seemed to be watching the fight excitedly. His lack of orders to Blaze turned out to be an advantage in and of itself, as evidenced by the expression of all three Gym Leaders; Cress in particular was clearly observing Ken closely, trying to discern any sort of hidden signal between Trainer and Pokemon.

 _Look all you want—you won't see anything,_ Cheren thought with a chuckle. _He really is just spectating someone else's battle just like we are. Blaze doesn't need orders to know what to do in a fight._

With an excited shout, Blaze dashed back into the fray, unleashing a Double Kick that staggered Wave.

Bianca started cheering, unable to contain her own excitement anymore. "Yeah! Go Kenny! Go Blaze!"

Cheren almost joined in when a worrying thought occurred. _Wait. Panpour is a Water-Type; why hasn't Wave used any water attacks yet? Maybe..._

The calm expression on both Cress and Wave's faces gave Cheren the clue that solved the puzzle. _They're holding back on purpose! Since Blaze's speed surprised them, they're waiting until they can adjust to that speed so that they can get a clean hit in!_

Unfortunately, neither Ken nor Blaze seemed to realize this; Blaze, unaware of the imminent danger, went into a full-on rush straight at Wave. Cheren couldn't help but shout a warning, but before even one word left his lips, Cress interrupted. "Wave, use Water Gun!"

A sudden blast of water surged out of the Panpour's mouth, the powerful stream hitting Blaze dead-on, knocking him back HARD.

"CHAR!" Ken shouted in alarm, his sudden poke-speak drawing the attention of all three Gym Leaders as Blaze struggled to his feet; the latter had no time to move, however; when another Water Gun hit him, it practically sent the unfortunate chimchar flying.

* * *

 **-"BLAZE!"-** I shout as my brother is hit by Wave's surprise attack; I don't even care that the Gym Leaders are looking at me. All I can see is Blaze, trying to recover from the powerful attack.

 **-"Urgh... I-I'm okay—AUGH!"-** Blaze is interrupted by another burst of water, this one hitting even harder than the first, and for a moment I want to stop the fight and rush over to protect him. I know I can't though—outside of shouting advice, interfering in a one-on-one battle is a definite no-no among our kind. So as I run to Blaze's side, I try to think of some way around that attack, some way to beat it—because if I can't find one, he's going to lose.

I try to think as much as possible, and at first nothing comes to mind... until I remember our lunch. _Fire beating water... that's it!_

Blaze barely manages to dodge the next Water Gun, and even then he gets a pretty nasty graze from it. He lands close enough to me that I can whisper my plan to him.

 **-"Blaze, do you have enough left in you to put a lot of power into Ember and still follow up with another attack?"-**

-"Hnn... Yeah, I can, but I don't see the point—wait. I think I get what you have in mind!"-

I move out of the way as Blaze prepares himself. Across from us, Cress smirks. "I have to admit, you fought well, but you won't be getting a badge from me today. Wave, finish it! Water Gun!"

Wave sends out the attack, but this time instead of dodging, Blaze does something different: he uses Ember directly on the incoming stream of water, making the flame as hot as he can possibly get it. The result is that the Water Gun attack is completely vaporized, filling the area with a cloud of steam thick enough to obscure Wave's view for a few seconds... which is plenty of time for Blaze to leap out of the fog and deliver a powerful Pound attack directly to Wave's head with all his might, sending the Water-type flying backwards into dreamland.

Blaze smiles, then collapses in exhaustion. **-"Now THAT... was a fight..."-**

I rush over to hug him in joy as our victory is announced.

* * *

 ** _Yes, I'm fully aware that I'm taking liberties with regards to gameplay here. But there are plenty of aspects of gameplay that make little sense outside of that (for example, it feels sort of arbitrary that Fight-types automatically have super-effective damage against Normal-types, because it's purely for game balance; another example is that pokemon can only ever know four moves at a time). As such, I'll do my best to stick to the stuff that_ makes sense _in the pokemon setting_ outside _of pure gameplay._**


	5. Dumb Poses and Complications

After our victory—actually, Blaze's victory—I rushed him to the Pokemon Center, having been given directions by the Gym Leaders. Pokemon Centers are something that doesn't exist in the wild, but I'm glad it exists out here. Blaze wasn't hurt too badly, and while the humans there said not to get into too much difficulty for at least a day, other than that he was free to leave with me after only a short time. Just as we were leaving, though, we ran into Cheren and Bianca, both of whom had won their respective matches. Cheren and Riverclaw did brilliantly—type advantages didn't end up coming into play at all due to some kind of clever strategy whose explanation flew somewhere around a mile or two over me and my brother's heads. Bianca and Emerald had a tougher time of it, almost as much as Blaze; in the end, though, the pair managed to win, though Bianca wasn't sure exactly how it came about. Emerald, on the other hand, was absolutely certain, something she is making clear while relaxing outside her pokeball while Riverclaw gets a checkup.

 **-"Clearly, I simply outclassed our unfortunate opponent!"-**

 **-"That explains the ashes still on your tail,"-** I say, rolling my eyes. I'm pretty sure Blaze is rolling his with me.

Emerald isn't impressed. **-"Shows what you know! It just so happens that the dark color of ashes perfectly compliments my beautiful green skin, and I simply took advantage of the situation to look more charming than ever while blah blah blah"-  
**  
I tune her out, turning to look at the human-watch-box in the waiting room—so this is a television! That's a lot more interesting for the moment, though I do make a mental note to ask Riverclaw for the short version of her story once she inevitably repeats it to him so I won't seem rude if she brings it up again. Blaze and I watch as humans and pokemon alike work together, play together, sing together, and do all sorts of things together—it makes me wonder if all the stuff Team Plasma said back in Accumula Town was just them making stuff up. I do notice that there's a tendency for pokemon to do most of the work while the humans do less, but at the same time most of what I see has them working side-by-side, so maybe it's just that humans aren't as strong as pokemon...? But then again, I'm pretty strong and I was born as a human, so...

 **-"Hey, Fire, look! It's that human from Team Plasma!"-**

I snap out of my thoughts at Blaze's shout and focus back on the screen; from the background, I can clearly see some of the buildings in Accumula town; is this a... 'recording', I think?... of that day we saw them? After a few moments, I decide that it must be, because the words, the movements, and the pauses are all the same. Seeing the man on the TV is interesting; I'm not sure whether it's the fact that it's not in person, or if I was mistaken in my first impression, but somehow he seems a bit more sincere.

 **-"Maybe he's not such a bad human after all. Misguided, maybe, but if he does care about pokemon freedom as much as he claims, can he really be all that bad?"-  
**  
Blaze nods in agreement. **-"I have to admit, he's got some good points. Maybe we were imagining things back in Accumula."-**

"I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you're both talking about Ghetsis, huh?" Cheren comes in with Riverclaw and Bianca following.

 _Ghetsis._ That _was the name..._ "Yeah. Blaze and I thought he looked suspicious back in Accumula, but now we're thinking we got it wrong."

Riverclaw and Cheren both shake their heads. "Ken, trust me—if they were as honest as they claim, they wouldn't be under suspicion of criminal activity in the area," Cheren says. "Word has it that a couple of them have been seen lurking around the local labs where Professor Juniper and some of her colleagues research pokemon. After dark, when no one is supposed to be there. And early this morning, some sort of pokemon they were studying there went missing. That's too many coincidences to ignore."

I don't know why, but something about the way he's lecturing me starts to irritate me. "Blaze and I grew up in the wild; knowing friend from enemy there made the difference between alive and dead. We know what we're doing!"

 **-"You're wild,"-** Riverclaw says. **-"You haven't lived with humans long enough."-**

Emerald gets a serious look in her eyes. **-"He has a point, Little-Fire. If you and Heart-Blaze lived with humans like we do, you'd know better."-**

 **-"They keep you in hold-berries, though,"-** my brother responds. **-"What's the point of those things existing if not to trap and hold like Team Plasma says?"-**

I translate Blaze's argument for Cheren and Bianca; the latter seems to think about it a bit before speaking. "W-well, I don't know about Plasma being bad or anything, but... would they be sneaking around the lab if they weren't up to no good? I-I-I mean, the eyewitnesses might have been mistaken or something, I guess..."

I open my mouth to say something, but I decide against it, turning back toward the TV. Besides, she just gave me an idea...

* * *

Blaze and I sneak out of our room in the Pokemon Center in the middle of the night, careful not to wake the others. Unfortunately, we're only partially successful, as we discover while creeping out the door.

"What are you two doing?"

We whip around to see Bianca looking at us confusedly.

"We're going to... look-understand? Find-true?" I say, trying to think of the human word for it.

Bianca briefly forgets her don't-wake-up-other-people voice. "OH! You mean investigate, right?"

"Yeah. You said those eyewitnesses might have been mistaken about Team Plasma, right? Well, Blaze and I still don't know how to feel about them. The things they say, they're good; you can't understand how much the things they say appeal to us, having grown up wild. It's just... we can't ignore that, we can't not want to believe it. But at the same time, you guys said we aren't able to read humans as well as we read other pokemon." I shake my head sadly. "We just want to know, one way or the other. Only way to do that is to have a look for ourselves."

She thinks about it for a second or two before speaking. "I-I understand. But... C-can I go with you? Just in case?"

* * *

"I told you we should have just put it in a cage or something—"

"Shut up, you idiot! According to the tracker, that Munna has to be hiding around here somewhere and I don't want YOU scaring it off like you did before!"

The strange pair and their pokemon companion crept silently around the abandoned area; once, it had been the old research facility. Now it served as a playground for both pokemon and humans. The dark of night concealed the group well, as did the tall grasses and crumbling remains of walls; if not for their knight-inspired outfits, they would be difficult to spot indeed.

"Munna mun mun..."

The trio stopped in their tracks at the sound, crouching low in the grass; in front of them was their quarry, still unaware of their presence... and sleeping in a corner, unknowingly trapped by them already. Slowly, they crept toward the pokemon, preparing a pokeball...

"So it IS true! You lying scum! For a moment, we thought you meant it about freeing pokemon... but you're just poachers after all!"

They whipped around at the new voice to see two kids; one a nervous-looking girl, the other a rather angry-looking boy with an equally angry-looking chimchar on his shoulder.

"Poachers? Don't presume our intentions! We're capturing this pokemon for the good of pokemon everywhere, and you know nothing about us. Allow us to introduce ourselves!"

Clearing her throat, the woman of the group stood in a dramatic pose before beginning the introduction she and her partner had practiced endlessly in spite of the ridicule from their colleagues.

"Prepare for trouble!"

Her partner sidled up to her, in a pose of his own. "Make it double!"

"To protect pokemon from devastation!"

"To unite all peoples within our nation!"

"To denounce all pokemon slavery!"

"To stand for justice and bravery!"

"Jesse!" She said, whipping her bright red hair dramatically.

Her partner pulled out a rose in equally theatrical fashion. "James!"

"Team Plasma, fighting for pokemon rights!"

"Surrender now, or prepare to fight!"

"PURRLOIN, That's right!"

The response was a mix of awkard confusion and surprise at a talking pokemon rather than the awe and applause they expected.

"W-wait, did that pokemon talk like a human?" The girl pointed at the Purrloin.

The cat pokemon snorted derisively, rolling her eyes. "Oh, no, that's these two throwing their voices. Of course I can talk like you! How else are you gonna know how much better than you I am?"

"Chimchar chim chim..."

Purrloin whipped around angrily at the chimchar. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN, 'THAT'S A PURRLOIN FOR YOU'?! That's it, guys, I'll take the cheeky monkey!"

Jesse and James nodded... before pulling out guns and pointing them at the two kids. James smirked. "We may not enslave pokemon to do our bidding, but we have other ways of defending ourselves against interlopers—"

Before they could blink, the boy launched himself at them, drew back his fist... and unleashed a fiery punch to James' jaw, sending him flying; the Team Plasma grunt landed several yards away, clutching his burned cheek. "YEEEEEOOOOOOOOOWWWWW!"

"H-how did he do that—" Jesse had little time to react to a human boy attacking like a pokemon before a vine wrapped around her gun, pulling it out of her hands. She looked in the direction of the attack to see that the girl had released a snivy from a pokeball.

"Humans... you rely too much on your weird weapons and tools. I can fix that!" The boy said, tossing James' gun in the air... then smashing it between his flaming fists as it fell, crushing it to a flattened and twisted hunk of useless metal. _That's not possible,_ Jesse's mind helpfully supplied. _No ordinary human can do that! What_ is _this kid?!_ She didn't even register that Purrloin had been quickly incapacitated by the boy's chimchar until her pokemon companion cried out angrily.

"Ow-ow-OW! No fair grabbing me like that! And don't pull on my taAAAAAILLL!"

The boy walked over to the frightened munna, kneeling in front of it... before shocking her again by talking in poke-speak.

"Char chimchar chim?"

"Munna, mun mun!" The pokemon chirped happily in response, nodding in thanks before running off.

"Hey, no, come back!" James shouted after their fleeing target. "This can't get any worse—"

"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!"

* * *

I look toward the other end of the ruined plaza to see no less than Ghetsis, the representative of Team Plasma himself, standing before us and glaring angrily at his minions.

"You liar!" I shout at him, "You said you and your group were trying to _free_ pokemon, but your pals here just proved otherwise!"

The older human frowns, speaking in a sad manner. "I'm afraid you're mistaken, child. I had no idea of the actions these scoundrels were taking, but I had my suspicions. Rest assured, they were NOT acting on my orders..."

 **-"Don't listen to him, Fire,"-** Blaze says. **-"He can't be trusted!"-**

I nod at my brother, ignoring the odd look from Ghetsis at the nod before speaking. "And why should we believe you?"

"I'm afraid I cannot give you any proof of my sincerity; I know this appears to contradict my words, but all I have to give you is my apology and sworn oath that those words were not spoken falsely," he says before turning to his minions angrily. "You fools are a disgrace to Team Plasma! Capturing pokemon? That is not our way! You are both coming with me to answer for your crimes—"

"You think we're just going to let you go?"

"I know you must be angry, child; you clearly have a kind heart towards pokemon. But while they may not have been acting on my orders, the fact remains that they have done wrong while acting in our name. It is my fault for recruiting them in the first place, and Team Plasma's fault for not seeing their true nature; thus, their... _punishment,"_ He says, glaring at Jesse, James, and Purrloin menacingly, "is our responsibility. Farewell, children—I pray that our next meeting will be under better circumstances."

Before Bianca or I can stop them, Ghetsis waves his hands, unleashing a blinding light; by the time the light fades, he and his cohorts have vanished.

* * *

"YOU IDIOTS! What were you thinking, going after the munna in full uniform?! I specifically ordered you to prevent anyone from connecting us to its disappearance, and now you've lost it!"

Jesse, James, and Purrloin cowered before Ghetsis in Team Plasma's hidden base. "B-b-but Boss—"

"Silence, Jesse! Give me one reason not to kill all three of you right here and now!"

"THAT BOY USED POKEMON ATTACKS!"

Ghetsis looked at James in shock; he suddenly recalled the child's appearance. _He_ did _look rather familiar... could it be?_

"Tell me," Ghetsis growled, kneeling to their level, "did this boy, by any chance, speak as a chimchar?"


	6. No9 is Don't Leave Ken out of Fight Club

In the minds of most people, the lifeblood of revolution—without which one can never succeed—is a righteous cause to rally behind. In the minds of others, it's being armed and prepared. Still others believe that it was simply a matter of being a popular idea. Ghetsis knew better. In truth, all of those things are mere _products_ of that key element rather than the element itself; the real keystone of a successful revolution, above everything else, is reputation.

Without positive reputation, one cannot convince the masses of the righteousness of the cause. Without positive reputation, you cannot encourage others to lend you arms and help you prepare. Without positive reputation, a revolution cannot become a popular enough idea to fulfill the other two elements. Above all else, reputation was the key.

 _A reputation sullied by fools,_ he mused angrily as he paced within his chambers. _But not unsalvageable._ True, the trio of Jessie, James, and their Purrloin had turned the opinion of a few children against Team Plasma—and Ghetsis was not under any delusion that it could be salvaged in their case—but even if the actions of that trio became public, there were ways to counter it without sacrificing useful pawns. For example, publicly disowning them from Team Plasma and allowing the authorities to capture them sent a message that their actions did not represent the true face of the organization—and by using indirect influence to secure their escape, as well as issue orders in secret, he could use them to accomplish tasks that Team Plasma simply couldn't be seen doing without destroying its reputation.

Ghetsis had it all planned out. Team Plasma's reputation—its most vital weapon to ensure that the idiotic masses continued to be fooled as to their true goal—would remain intact.

* * *

Ghetsis was a fool; of that, Sage Giallo was certain. Oh, yes, the other sages were as blind to Ghetsis' true nature as their "king". But Giallo knew better, and Ghetsis was entirely unaware of a power growing right under his nose.

The first mistake his "superior" had made: assigning him to supervise the Trio's escape, along with all their future orders, thus essentially giving him his own black ops squad. True, their intelligence was somewhat lacking when left to their own devices, but when given more specific orders they had proven themselves fully capable of carrying them out in a competent fashion—and after their dressing-down from Ghetsis, they were unlikely to act of their own accord again. Giallo chuckled to himself; _the perfect pawns._

But that was only the tip of the iceberg, compared to the greatest weapon at his disposal: he knew Ghetsis' dirty little secret, the "side project" that the man thought was so perfectly hidden, the one he had long ago cast aside as a failure until the fruits of it had been revealed a success all along. All it would take was the right trap laid with the right bait, and he would be in possession of that which Ghetsis had intended as proof of concept for his original Plan A; and thankfully, the target was just as clueless and naive as Ghetsis himself.

A new power was rising within Team Plasma; soon enough, Ghetsis would be cast out, and in his place as the King's "advisor", Sage Giallo would reap the benefits of Ghetsis' own plan.

 _Let the games begin..._

* * *

After Ghetsis and his cronies leave, Bianca decides we ought to go back to the room and tell Cheren what happened; I don't know what he could do about it, but I decide it couldn't hurt to let him know we were okay.

I was wrong, because he hurt my ears when we told him.

"You did _WHAT?!"_

I'm kind of glad that it's morning by now; I'm pretty sure that the other humans in this building will already be a bit upset at him waking them up. Arceus, he probably woke them up in the next building over!

"I had to know, Cheren," I say, clutching my ears like my brother and Bianca; "and now I do. We're fine, they got away, what's the big deal?"

If I didn't know any better I would say that Dad must have taught Cheren how to make 'you messed up' faces. His is perfect. "Kenny, they're a _suspected criminal organization under investigation by the Pokemon League themselves._ When the government itself is taking a key interest in a group, you know there's something wrong with the picture somewhere. And I only say _suspected_ because, for some unholy reason, neither of you thought to—oh, I don't know, maybe _CALL THE POLICE?!"_

Bianca cringes at the sudden increase in volume. "W-we're r-really sorry, Cheren..."

The look on her face stops Cheren; he cools down and sighs heavily. "No, _I'm_ sorry. I didn't mean to yell so loud; it's just... you guys are so reckless. What if you'd gotten killed?"

 **-"Arceus, is he secretly related to Dad or something?"-** Blaze says with a raised eyebrow.

 **-"No, if he were he'd follow up by asking how the fight went and whether or not we kicked their butts."-**

I share a chuckle with my brother before turning back to Cheren. "Yeah, I see your point. We'll be more careful in the future..."

A silence passes between us; after a while, Cheren breaks the silence with another statement. "About that fight. Did you participate, Ken? I mean, did you use your... powers?"

"Yeah," I say with a head tilt. "and they're not 'powers', they're just something pokemon do."

Cheren frowns at me. "Kenny, a criminal organization like Team Plasma would probably be willing to go a long way toward capturing someone like you—a human who can fight like a pokemon. You might have just put yourself in even more danger by showing off. Yes, that's something that pokemon do, but you're not _really_ a pokemon; you're human, and that kind of thing isn't exactly _normal_ for a human. You'll need to hide it from now on, I think."

 **~((Heh.))~**

"Hide it? Cheren, that's one of the few things that still lets me feel like a pokemon! It's one of the only things I took with me when I left home. I can't just pretend it doesn't exist! Besides... I know I'm human by birth. But that's only on the surface. Underneath that, I'm a pokemon, and a fire-and-fight type to boot, and I'm PROUD of that. If someone comes after me or you guys, I won't hold back just because it might be weird for them!"

Cheren sighs again; he does that a lot. "Fine. I get it. Just... save it for if they come after you again, alright? After all, it's not like you could fight in a trainer battle yourself..."

The conversation ends with Bianca absentmindedly remembering to call the police and Cheren slapping himself in the face (I wonder if that's a human thing?), but that last statement sticks with me for a long time.

After a rest and breakfast, we set out towards the West, in the direction of our next badge in Nacrene City. On the way, we pass by a building with a big television screen... and like the last one, it features Ghetsis' face; unlike the last time, though, this is a... live broadcast, I think—yeah, that's the word—of the guy from some sort of unknown location.

 **"...and that, People of Unova, brings me to the purpose of this broadcast: there are those among the powerful—the Pokemon League, that very government that perpetuates this system of pokemon enslavement—that wish to tarnish our name, to call us 'criminals', to claim that we are violent thugs when, in fact, we are peaceable and just. But a people NOT peaceable and just, a people who ARE criminals and violent thugs... would such people willingly hold their own accountable for crimes? Observe!"**

An image of the human members of the Trio from last night appears on the screen; they're standing in front of a weird background and holding up things with what I assume are their names on them.

 **"These two FORMER members of Team Plasma dared to commit a crime under our banner; what's worse, the crime was an attempt at stealing a pokemon—no, ABDUCTING, for stealing would imply an object rather than a living being! The very sort of crime that we of Team Plasma seek to end! As you can clearly see, they have been handed over to the authorities. We ourselves did so the moment their actions were uncovered. But... tell me this, People and Pokemon of Unova: did ANY of you hear of this on the news? Of how Team Plasma held its own accountable? Probably not. Do not doubt for a second, though—you WILL hear of it. They will try to cover up the fact that we voluntarily gave these scoundrels up to them; they will try to deny that we disowned them, they will try to deceive you into believing that these criminals represent us! This false witness is..."**

Cheren, Bianca, Blaze and I all stop watching. The large crowd around us, however, hangs on Ghetsis' every word.

We get about halfway to Nacrene before sundown; I ask why Cheren and Bianca don't just use those people-mover things—cars—and they say that pokemon journeys have to be made on foot. That's something I agree on, to be honest; besides, cars smell funny and they're loud. I quickly regret bringing up the conversation; not the part about cars, though.

The part about Pokemon journeys. Because what Cheren said earlier is still lingering in my head.

Blaze clearly had a lot of fun in his fight. He earned that human badge. And I'm happy for him. But... just watching him do all the work, then having the Gym Leader give the badge to ME feels wrong. Even Cheren and Bianca can say that they help give direction and stuff; Blaze doesn't need that. I was literally just watching him and doing nothing. And if I'm just doing nothing... what am I on this journey for at all? The Thirteenth Summer journey means more to me than just... watching. But I can't just take this away from Blaze, either. He's looking forward to the next fight, like any self-respecting fight type would.

I don't want to watch. I want to join in. I want to fight WITH my brother. To grow stronger WITH him...

"Help! Somebody, help!"

A voice rings out in the fading light; some human a few years younger than us comes running up, tears on her face. "Puffy... they took her... my lillipup, Puffy!"

"Wait, slow down, kid! What exactly happened?" Cheren looks the girl in the eye while Bianca comforts her.

"I-*sniff*-I w-w-was walking d-down the street when s-some mean man grabbed Puffy's p-pokeball off m-my belt and r-r-ran off t-t-toward the cave!" The girl points toward a rise nearby in between sobs. "I t-tried to call the p-p-police, but my phone won't reach—"

Bianca perks up. "Oh! I have an idea! Our XTransceivers are a lot higher-tech than a regular phone—they're made for pokemon trainers on a journey, after all. Maybe we can use them to call the police for her?"

"Good idea," I say. "I'll go after the thieves—"

Cheren puts his hand on my wrist. "Kenny, we talked about this!"

"I know, but this is different! Those thieves aren't going to just wait for the police to show up! I can't just _sit_ here and let someone else do something when I _know_ I can handle it myself!"

"But you DON'T know, Ken..." Cheren says. "...Which is why—and I know I'm going to regret saying this—I'm coming with you to make sure you and Blaze don't get in over your head."

* * *

Bianca put away the XTransceiver and knelt in front of the girl, speaking in a calm and reassuring tone. "Don't worry. The police are on their way; you'll see lillipup again, I know it!"

"Th-thank you..." the girl said, averting her eyes a bit. Bianca gave the girl a smile followed by a pat on the head.

"So... while we're waiting, what's your lillipup like?"

The girl paused for a moment in an odd way. "Um... she's a cute puppy, and friendly..."

 _What was that?_ Bianca thought to herself. _That's a strange thing to pause over like that._ She shook her head, dispelling that thought. _I'm just imagining things. She's just a frightened little girl..._

"Oh really? Maybe my Snivy, Emerald, would like to meet her and play with her."

"You mean battle?"

Bianca shook her head and smiled again. "No, not against a little puppy. Not unless it wants to."

There was a silence for a few moments before the girl frowned, looking up at Bianca. "You're really nice..."

"Why thank you—"

"Why are you so nice? The people said you were mean and wanted to hurt pokemon."

A look of surprise came over Bianca's face. "What people?"

The girl's expression suddenly turned to one of embarrassment and guilt. "...I think I made a mistake..."

* * *

The cave ends up being rather dark, but with the aid of a small human-fake-sun thing (Flashlight? Torch?) from Cheren's belt pouch we find our way through several narrow passages. After some trekking, the passage opens up into a rather impressive chamber, with a pool of water at the end of it and large "cliffs" around the area. The sound of dripping water echoes all around us, but the thief is nowhere in sight. Something about the whole thing seems... off.

"That's strange," Cheren says. "There doesn't seem to be any other way out of this chamber. So where did the thief go?"

"Maybe he's just hiding from us? I see plenty of rocks and stuff to hide behind."

Cheren shakes his head. "Maybe. But the more I think about it, the more this whole thing worries me. Why would a thief come in here to escape? Why not lose any pursuers in the wilderness instead? The forest around here is fairly thick, and a cave is hardly guaranteed to have an easy escape route. I have a bad feeling about this..."

 **~((Oh yeah, here we go! This oughta be fun. Hey, you there, the reader with the bag of popcorn! Hold it up to the computer screen... yoink! Ha, the look on your face is priceless! Now to sit back and enjoy the show...))~**

"Well well well, looks like our quarry fell for it!"

A voice from one of the cliffs in the cave rings out as a man in a black outfit stands up, revealing himself to us; with a wave of his hand, three more people reveal themselves from dark corners and behind rocks, tossing hold-berries out and releasing their pokemon—among them two roggenrollas and a pidove. "You kids might want to surrender; or don't. That would be more fun!"

 **-"It's a trap!"-** Blaze says, baring his teeth.

 **-"Way to state the obvious—"-**

The first human smirks evilly. "Ah, thanks for confirming that report from Jesse and James! A boy who talks like a chimchar..."

"Wait, Jesse and James? But that means..."

Cheren finishes my sentence, having put two and two together. "You're with Team Plasma! If you're here to steal our pokemon, you can forget it—"

"Heh. We won't mind getting a bit of a bonus there, but we didn't come here for that..." the lead human says ominously before pointing directly at me. "We came here for _HIM."_

In that instant, the three grunts shout out orders to their pokemon; Blaze and I immediately charge them.

"I'll take the pidove, Kenny. Go, Riverclaw!" Cheren throws out his hold-berry and releases Riverclaw.  
 **  
-"Trouble?"-**

 **-"Bad trainers out to get us,"-** I say, leaping out of the way of a Rock Blast from my opponent. **-"We'll explain once we take these jerks down!"-**

The Oshawott nods stoically. **-"Okay."-** Before his foe can react, he unleashes a Water Gun at the pidove, with only a pointed finger and a slight gesture from Cheren. Meanwhile, Blaze and I decide to work our way to the Plasma members instead of their pokemon to force the humans to call them back by way of punching until they give. This turns out to be a mistake.

"Mustaine, earthquake!"

The respective trainer's roggenrola complies immediately. **-"Yes, master!"-**

Just as Blaze and I land in front of the Plasma grunts, the earth beneath our feet begins shaking, causing us to stumble just as the other roggenrola unleashes another Rock Blast at both of us; I barely have time to notice before I'm struck. As my world erupts in momentary pain, I feel myself hurtling through the air—and suddenly, I'm falling through water, it's getting in my nose I can't see which way is up and it's so COLD and I hate it and I can't feel my fire help help help **~((Dammit, can't let him die that easy, it'd be too boring. I guess I can point him in the right direction...))~** Blaze is there grab onto him grab onto anything PULL UP can't move too cold help...

 **~((Hmm. Down for the count, eh? I'll just keep him alive until the other wins. Or until the other loses and I just pull the plug on this whole jumpchain.))~**

* * *

"KEN! BLAZE!" Cheren cried out in horror as both human and pokemon were sent flying into the water; without a second's delay, Cheren immediately cleared his mind of distractions and focused his thoughts on the situation. _Pidove and trainer already down; get over there. Gesture 'Water Gun' at roggenrola one. Shoulder-charge respective trainer, gesture 'tackle' at trainer to knock unconscious before can recover. Another attack coming, earthquake, jump, gesture same, height of jump gesture 'water gun', target roggenrola two. All three enemy pokemon down for count. Enemy trainer pulling something out of jacket, likely gun; gesture 'toss scalchop' at enemy shoulder, stopping pull, grab rock as scalchop tossed and strike head—all three enemy trainers unconscious._

Cheren's focus was broken when he saw Ken crawl out of the pool, dragging his adoptive brother by the scruff of the neck before passing out; both looked pretty bad off, but Blaze in particular looked to be in serious condition, the flame on his tail reduced to barely a flicker.

"Damn incompetent idiots... oh well. The boss will probably be happier with a live subject to experiment on than a dead one to autopsy."

Cheren turned to see the leader leap down from the cliff, tossing a pokeball out and releasing a victreebel. "You kids look exhausted; time to put you down. Dion, Solarbeam!"

Grabbing Riverclaw and leaping out of the way behind a rock, Cheren once again attempted to focus... but the state of his friends kept his mind racing too much to block everything else out. _Gotta stay calm, gotta stay calm... Arceus, Blaze looks bad. If I don't find a way to increase his body heat somehow, he may not make it to a pokemon center. But how can I do it with that victreebel? Solarbeam is too powerful, one hit and we're toast... the only upside is the recharge time, but considering how maneuverable victreebels are, there's no guarantee we'll be able to hit it before it's ready for another one. And this rock probably won't be able to completely block a Solarbeam either... think, Cheren, think!_ As Cheren tilted his head back in panicked thought, his eyes fell on a large formation hanging from the ceiling... and was gifted with a flash of insight.  
 _  
Wait. That stalactite... not close to anything load-bearing, from the looks of it. The section nearest the ceiling is pretty narrow, and from its position it looks like it would fall precisely..._

A smirk crossed his features as Cheren pushed his glasses up. Carefully gesturing his orders to Riverclaw, he shouted out to his opponent, trying his hardest to sound nervous. "Okay... I can't win. I surrender. Just don't hurt me..."

Raising his hands above his head, he slowly walked out from behind the rock; the result was an amused chuckle from the trainer.

"Heh. I'd say you made a smart move, but you're under the assumption that we planned to leave any witnesses..."

"No, I figured you weren't going to let me live. I just needed to get in position." His hands still raised, Cheren pointed directly upward; in an instant, Riverclaw unleashed a Water Gun on the stalactite above, causing it to come crashing down. The enemy trainer's eyes went wide as he watched it fall... only for it to land with a crash between the combatants.

"Okay, THAT was actually pretty clever—too bad it missed! Dion, Solarbeam!"

The blast was powerful enough to turn the stalactite to rubble... but Cheren and Riverclaw had already leapt out of the way, the latter unleashing yet another Water Gun in the path of the beam. Before they could recover, though, the enemy trainer and his victreebel were standing over Cheren. "No more cover. Any last words, kid?"

"Just one."

A chuckle from the Plasma leader. "Oh? What would that be?"

Cheren smirked, pointing off towards the pool. "Checkmate."

The Plasma leader whipped around just in time to see a freshly-recovered Blaze, wreathed in flame and delivering a Fire Punch to the Victreebel.

 **~((That stalactite wasn't to hurt the Plasma grunt, it was to hide the kid's movements and draw the guy's eye away from the chimchar; the water gun acted like a magnifying glass, deflecting the Solarbeam and focusing its rays on the chimchar, setting it on fire... and fire heals fire-types! This kid is GOOD.))~**

"I'll take that! RETURN!"

Before the lead grunt had even registered any movement, Cheren grabbed the pokeball from his opponent's belt and activated it, causing the victreebel to vanish in a flash of red light before one last punch from the chimchar sent its trainer into dreamland.

* * *

 **A/N:** _**Yes, I know that's not how pokemon attacks and fire-types work in the games, but like I said before there's just as much stuff in the games that would make even less sense except for gameplay purposes, and I needed a brilliant strategy for Cheren to use since I'm making him the strategist of the party. Call it creative license. In any case, we're caught up with all the chapters that have already been posted on Spacebattles, so the next update hasn't been written yet. You'll have to wait for it just like everyone else!**_


	7. Secrets, N, and Broody Ken

Dusting himself off and recalling Riverclaw, Cheren ran over to Ken's prone form, where Blaze looked on in worry. Cheren tried to shake his friend awake... 'tried' being the operative word.

"Hey, Kenny, wake up!... Ken? What—"

It wasn't until Cheren's hand brushed against Ken's skin that he noticed something wrong. _He's cold... really cold! Was the water freezing or...? No, if the water were that cold, his clothes would be that cold, too._

Before Cheren could do anything else, the sound of police sirens rang out from outside the cave; a number of police officers entered the chamber, quickly cuffing the grunts and recalling the unconscious pokemon. One officer, noticing the Chimchar and two human children, quickly rushed to their aid.

"What happened to your friend, son? He looks pretty bad..."

"He fell in the water, and I can't wake him up," Cheren replied, trying his best to stay calm but failing to hide his mild panic. "I don't think he's got water in his lungs—he's breathing—but I can't figure out what's wrong with him aside from him being really cold!"

The officer nodded and quickly took out a two-way radio. "Someone call a paramedic, we have a child injured here—"

"That won't be necessary, officer! I can help him."

All eyes turned to see Professor Juniper running over to Ken's side with a towel, a thick electric blanket, and what appeared to be a potion bottle.

"Ma'am, I've seen hypothermia before, and I can say this kid is pretty bad off—"

Shaking her head, Juniper proceeded to gently dry Ken off with the towel before removing the top from the bottle. "Kenny is a special case, and I've treated him before. Trust me, I know what I'm doing. Could you please lift him up a bit? I need to give him this."

The officer carefully lifted up the boy's upper body—being careful to support the head—and opened his mouth, careful to keep Ken more-or-less upright as Juniper poured the contents of the bottle into his mouth before holding the jaw shut. Once Ken's gag reflex took over, they gently lay him down, after which Juniper proceeded to wrap the boy up in the electric blanket as tightly as would be comfortable, pressing the heating button.

"He should be up and around in a few minutes. Feel free to call the paramedics, but I think he'll be fine."

Once the officer walked away, Juniper quickly turned to Cheren, keeping her voice low. "What happened here?"

"Team Plasma set up an ambush," Cheren replied. "At first I thought they were after our pokemon, but their leader said something about needing Kenny for experiments or something. Juniper, Ken can—"

The Professor quickly shushed Cheren before responding with a whisper. "Ken can do Pokemon moves, I know. As I told the officer, I've treated him in the past."

"So I guess I don't have to explain why they want him then. What was wrong with him?"

Juniper frowned and remained silent for a moment or two, drawing a raised eyebrow from Cheren. "I can't explain it any more than you, sadly. On the topic of Team Plasma, I certainly didn't expect this, but I was afraid that something like it would occur if his... abilities got out. I'll have to make a few calls; could you please stay with him and Blaze for now and let me know when he wakes up?"

Cheren nodded, turning his gaze back to his friend. _Can't explain... or_ won't _explain?_

* * *

I feel something warm and soft around me; groaning, I open my eyes to see Cheren, Bianca, and Blaze sitting around me in the cave.

 **-"Little-Fire!"-**

Blaze manages to hug me before I can get out of the weird hot-rag I'm wrapped in; Bianca wipes a tear away with a smile.

"I'm so glad you're okay, Kenny! I was scared for a bit... I-I-I m-mean, uh, WE were scared!" She stammers out that last part and turns red for some reason while Cheren gives a smirk of his own.

"Yes, you had us worried. Professor Juniper really knows her stuff..."

"Wait, Professor Juniper was here?" I sit up, untangling myself from the hot-rag. "Did she put me in this?"

"Yeah," Cheren replies. "She came in with the police once they started rounding up the Plasma guys and helped dry and warm you up; she gave you some sort of medicine, too. Then she went outside and talked to someone over her Xtranceiver for a bit. She came back just a few minutes ago and told us that we all ought to keep going towards Nacrene and go for the next badge."

I suddenly realize that I must have been out of the fight for some time; I look down at my hands a bit. "Thank you for saving me."

That gets me one of Cheren's eyebrows. "You don't sound too happy to be saved... what's wrong?"

 _What's wrong is that I_ had _to be saved in the first place..._ I don't say it out loud. "Nothing, Cheren. I'm fine..."

After a bit of a short check-up from some humans in white outfits—who look surprised that I'm able to walk again for some reason—we go back to the camp site, grab our stuff together, and continue our journey toward Nacrene City and our next fight.

Nacrene turns out to be pretty big, but in a different way from Striaton City; there are a few really tall buildings like the ones in Striaton—most of them in the center of it all—but the almost all the other buildings are more long than tall, and there aren't many that have more than two or three floors. There's also a lot of weird wooden paths with metal stuff going along them—Cheren says they're "train tracks", and promises to explain more about them later—all over the place. It's also not quite as loud or crowded as Striaton, which Blaze and I like. There's also less weird smells of the kind that come out of cars and don't seem to bother most humans. Another thing my brother and I like about it is that we can see hills on the horizon covered in thick forest; just over those hills is our home. It makes us both kind of sad that we can't go there and visit—the Thirteenth Summer is something you have to complete before you can come home—but somehow it feels comforting just to know that it's there.

Apparently this city grew around the "train tracks" and used to just be a place where humans stored stuff before moving it somewhere else, which is what almost all of those longer buildings were originally for; after a while, though, the city changed and they turned the holding-buildings into regular ones, and many were turned into homes for humans. There's also a big, really cool-looking stone building on a hill around the North end of the city; Cheren says that's the Gym, but it also doubles as something called a "museum". Apparently it's where humans keep old stuff from the past so that they can look at it and learn about it; Blaze and I don't quite get the concept, but then again there's a lot of stuff humans do that we're pretty sure we'll never understand.

Unfortunately, Blaze and I somehow get separated from Cheren and Bianca on the way to the Gym; as I make my way toward it—figuring that they'd find their way there anyway—I run into a familiar face.

"Hello, Little-Fire. I didn't expect to see you here."

N walks toward me and Blaze, smiling calmly at us. I'm glad to see him again—he's the only human so far who uses my real name, and it's nice to have a reminder of my Pokemon side here in human lands, especially now. **-"Hey, N! What are you doing here?"-**

He pauses strangely before speaking, but I dismiss it because I know he's a good guy like Cheren and Bianca. "I was just at the... 'Gym', but only to look at the exhibits. Simple curiosity, really. What about you?"

 **-"Well, Cheren and Bianca are on their badge journey, and Blaze and I decided to go with them..."-**

"You're... on that journey?" N looks surprised, but not necessarily in a good way; in fact, he looks kind of sad, or maybe disappointed. "I'm sorry to hear that. The trainer's journey is an unfortunate thing in my mind; so many pokemon made to fight for humans, for the sake of their 'owners'."

 **-"Actually, I kind of like it,"-** Blaze says once I translate. **-"That first gym battle was the best fight I've ever had!"-**

"Ah, of course; you are a fight-type, after all..." N says with a smile before turning to me. "...but what do you think of it so far, Little-Fire?"

It's my turn to frown this time. **-"I... honestly, I don't know yet,"-** I say; Blaze looks at me with a bit of surprise as I continue. **-"I mean, I'm glad Blaze is having fun. But... I don't like the idea of him doing all the fighting himself. That's the one part of the journey that still weirds me out. I... I want to join in, I want to fight too—I'm human, but I'm a pokemon at heart, and I want to feel like one. Fight-types are supposed to fight, but I can't do it because that's just not what humans do. It doesn't seem right to just stand and watch..."-**

Blaze frowns sympathetically at me. **-"Fire..."-**

"I see," N says, mirroring Blaze's expression. "You're right that you aren't truly human. And in my mind, that is a blessing all its own; pokemon just seem more... honest to me. You and your brother may be the only two people in the world who make the journey something other than a simple amusement for humans and elevate it to something greater. If it would make you feel any better, I have friends of my own where I live that I would be happy to introduce you to, who would understand you and accept your true self like no human would..."

I think about that for a bit before shaking my head. **-"No. Thanks for the offer, but... I don't want to make Blaze give this up just for me."-**

 **-"Fire, it's okay, I understand—"-** Blaze interjects before stopping himself for some reason.

A moment of silence passes, until N breaks it by speaking once more. "You truly are a kind soul, Little-Fire. I wish you luck in your travels, but know that the offer will always be available; if we should meet again, you need only ask, and I will gladly open my doors to you and Heart-Blaze. Farewell."

I stand there in thought for a bit after he leaves. Blaze is pretty quiet too. We somehow find our way to the Gym to find Cheren and Bianca already looking for us, but I don't say anything about N. I don't know why...

* * *

 _ **Just to make things clear, no, N isn't gay and neither is Ken. Not that there's anything wrong with that—I just don't like putting romances in where a story doesn't need them, as it can distract from more important things in the plot (not to mention that I suck at writing romance, which makes sense when you consider the sad fact that I've never been in a romantic relationship in my life). That being said, N and Ken do understand each other on a level that no one else in the world does due to their similar relationships with pokemon, and this connection will be important throughout the Pokemon jump, but it's all purely platonic. Please read and review, and I'll see you next chapter!**_


	8. Round Two: FIGHT!

The inside of the Nacrene gym building is pretty impressive; the small entrance gives way to a massive circular chamber under a huge dome with hanging lights (chandeliers, according to Cheren), and a gigantic skeleton of some dragon-type towering over the center of the room. There are a bunch of smaller skeletons around the walls, with rooms off to the side containing more stuff; Blaze and I are a lot more impressed than Cheren and Bianca, especially when we see the older stuff humans made. Stone slabs with weird scratch-writing on them, little clay figures, and other stuff going back so far in time it makes our heads spin. The weirdest thing, though, is an odd little orb on display; the sign on it says that it must be some sort of statue representing something. Cheren and Bianca don't seem that interested, but both Blaze and I feel... something... coming off of it. We can't quite put our finger on it; we can't _see_ anything weird about it, there's no sound or odd smell, but the closer we get to it the more we feel like we're being watched. We decide to brush it off; after all, we're here for a gym battle, not to look around at old stuff.

At the back of the museum, there's another room, this one full of huge shelves with rows and rows of books, boxes with weird folders in them, and crates full of other stuff; according to the humans who work here, the books are fine to look at, but the other stuff is off-limits to visitors and is part of something called an "archive". Unfortunately, the place is so big that we somehow get lost in it, until a human woman comes up to us.

"Ah, there you are! The staff told me they saw you come in, but I couldn't find you. I was almost worried you wouldn't show up."

The four of us look at each other before turning back to her.

"Wait, are you the gym leader here?" Cheren asks.

She smiles back. "The name's Lenora. You must be Cheren, Bianca, Ken and Blaze!"

"H-how do you know our names? Were you the person the Professor was talking to over the XTranceiver?"

"Smart girl," Lenora says, nodding at Bianca. "Juniper is a... consultant of sorts for the League. I can't talk about it here, though; follow me and I'll explain once we're in the gym proper."

Once we enter the actual gym area—which isn't that different from the one in Striaton City—she turns to look at us with a serious expression.

"The truth is, Juniper and the League go back a long way; she started out in a government research program before striking out on her own as a pokemon professor, but she kept in touch with us, letting us know if she discovered new pokemon or new information about pokemon. Several years ago, she contacted us about a rather unique find... specifically, you, Ken. You see, when you got sick all those years ago, nothing worked; human medicine wasn't having any effect on you, so she took a blood sample and discovered something that shouldn't be possible."

"What was it?" Cheren asks, eyebrows raised. "Is that when she found out he could fight like a pokemon?"

"No. She discovered _why_." Lenora turns to look at me. "Ken, do you know what DNA is?"

"One of the rangers at the preserve tried explaining it to me once," I say. "It's some sort of code in the blood that tells living things what they are and what they ought to look like, right?"

"A rather simplified explanation, but not too far off. In any case... Ken, you have both human and pokemon DNA. Essentially, you're half-chimchar."

"WHAT?!" Cheren, Bianca and I all shout in unison; I almost forget to translate for Blaze, and he has about the same reaction.

"That's more or less how the League reacted when she informed us," Lenora says. "Like I said, it shouldn't be possible. We don't know how it happened, or where you actually came from, but somehow you're a hybrid of both pokemon and human."

It takes a bit for all of this to sink in, but once it does... I find myself smiling. I always felt a bit isolated from the rest of our troop because I was human; as much as I wanted to be a pokemon, as much as I thought of myself as one, I knew that it was all in my head and that I would never truly be a pokemon. I even used to cry myself to sleep at the thought of how different I was... but now, I find out that I wasn't too different after all. I really am a pokemon in a way! Maybe... maybe one day—and I know how unlikely it is, I'm still half-human—I might even get to evolve in some way.

Blaze picks up on my feelings and smiles at me. **-"I always knew you were one of us, Fire! Guess this means we're** _ **real**_ **brothers in a way, huh?"-**

Lenora continues after a bit. "In any case, once we found out about you, the government decided to have Juniper watch over you and study you indirectly; there are plenty of groups out there that would be interested in someone like you... and now one of them has found you."

 **-"Team Plasma,"-** my brother realizes once I finish translating. **-"That must be why they laid that trap for us!"-**

Cheren finally manages to process the revelation enough to respond. "...Why did Professor Juniper contact you? Why are you telling us all of this?"

"She didn't just contact me. She contacted every gym leader in Unova and asked them for a favor; specifically, we're going to help Kenny learn how to protect himself by helping him get stronger. And to do that, we're going to let him personally fight in gym battles."

My eyes go wide in shock, but after a few seconds the shock is replaced with excitement. "You mean I get to fight like a pokemon?"

Lenora smiles back. "That's correct. Basically, while Cheren and Bianca will battle normally, you and Blaze will fight a two-on-two battle; to adjust for your unique situation, one of the two opponents will be unique to your fight—in this case, I'll use one of my non-gym-battle pokemon alongside my usual starter. As you go on your journey, all of us gym leaders will share the battle data with each other to keep track of your growth, and you'll need to remain in contact with Professor Juniper, speaking with her over the XTranceiver on a regular basis to keep her updated in the event that any unusual changes occur."

"What do you mean by 'unusual changes'?"

"I don't know, Bianca. Kenny's case is unique, and we still know next to nothing about his potential or what might happen as he grows stronger. Still, the more we know about him, the closer we'll get to finding out his origins and why Team Plasma wants him. Besides, the very idea of a pokemon-human hybrid could have a lasting impact on the relationship between humans and pokemon; that alone is reason enough to document his progress. Do any of you have any more questions?"

We all take a moment to think, but nothing comes to mind; we're still trying our best to process what we just learned.

"Alright, then," says Lenora. "Who's going first?"

After a bit of deliberation between us, we decide to get it over with and let me and Blaze go first. As he leaps off my shoulder and we take our spots in the circle. My brother and I look at each other and smile; for the first time since we left the wild, we're going to be an official team and earn our badges together!

Lenora tosses out two hold berries, one containing a herdier, the other a vigoroth.

 **-"Greetings and salutations to both of you! I am Wisefang, and my most excellent colleague here is known as Quick-rusher,"-** says the herdier in a very polite, if somewhat stuffy-sounding voice. **-"The two of us look forward greatly to honorable combat against the both of you—"-**

Quick-rusher proves true to his name and interrupts, speaking rapidly in an agitated tone. **-"Arceus, don't ya know when t' shut up? Let's get onta th' fight already, I'm tired o' waitin'! QUIIIIIIIIIICK RUUUUUUUSHERRRRRRRR!"-**

With that final shout, the battle begins.

* * *

Cheren had to admit, he was still reeling from the earlier revelations; that being said, he was very interested in seeing how this battle—and by extension, all future gym battles on this journey—would play out. Due to the special occasion, he and Bianca even decided to release Riverclaw and Emerald so they could watch as well; the respective pokemon seemed just as fascinated as their trainers were at the sight unfolding in front of them.

While the sight of a vigoroth surprised him somewhat—after all, it was a species not native to Unova and almost never seen outside of the Hoenn region—the speed with which it moved was more surprising given how quickly he had seen Blaze moving. What was even more surprising than that, however, was just how fast Ken could move; in the previous engagements with Team Plasma thus far, both Cheren and Bianca were too preoccupied with their own particular opponents to pay much attention to Ken's true abilities, but neither of them expected a human to be capable of moving with that level of speed and agility, being almost as fast as the vigoroth.

The pace of that particular fight was intense, with neither side bothering to even block, focusing instead on acrobatic evasions and near-reckless, frenzied offense; the vigoroth managed to land a nasty cut on Ken using Fury Swipes, but the latter managed to shake it off and return the favor with a Fire Kick. The opponent dodged the attack before nearly flanking Ken at Lenora's direction and forcing the boy to back off a bit.

The battle between Blaze and the herdier played out somewhat differently than the fast-and-furious pace of Ken's fight; Blaze used his speed and strength again and again to try and land a good blow on his opponent, but the herdier managed to avoid being hit with the least possible amount of movement, biding its time before retaliating with a single well-timed attack of its own. Its coordination with Lenora was precise down to the split second, but that didn't surprise Cheren much given that Lenora was a gym leader. What did amaze him was the fact that she was able to direct _both_ fights simultaneously with greater ease than many trainers did in single battles.

Suddenly, things took a turn for the worse as the herdier managed to actually knock Blaze down, leaping on the unfortunate chimchar and pinning him to the ground, biting and clawing while the latter struggled to shove it off of him.

"CHIM! Char, chim chimchar chim!"

Ken turned his head toward his brother, distracted by what Cheren deduced was a cry for assistance; that was all the opportunity the vigoroth needed to get in a powerful Take Down that sent Ken flying several feet back.

* * *

 **-"Pay attention ya little punk!"-**

I just barely manage to get to all fours when Quick-rusher is already on me again; a claw swipe misses my head by a fraction of an inch as I roll out of the way onto my hands and feet again. As he continues pressing me, I do a bit of a handspring over his head in hopes of getting over to Blaze, but once again I'm forced to turn my attention back to the vigoroth. I've never had to be in a real fight against an opponent as fast as me; the closest I've gotten is the occasional sparring session back home, and those were nowhere near as tough as this! Thankfully, out of the corner of my eye I see Blaze finally managing to toss his opponent off of him, and I can finally focus all my attention on Quick-rusher.

As the fight continues, the sheer rush of battle starts to fill me; I hear chuckling, then giggling, then outright wild laughter, only to realize it's me doing the laughing. I've never had this much fun! Sure, it smarts pretty bad when I get hit, but us fight-types have pretty high pain tolerance. I start to laugh and grin even more at that thought; for the first time since leaving home, I really do feel like a real pokemon! Before I know it, Quick-rusher is laughing too. If I didn't know any better I would have thought he was a fight-type too, given how much he enjoys the thrill of battle as well.

 **-"You're not half bad for a normal type!"-**

 **-"Ya got a lotta fight in ya yourself, humie,"-** he says as he dodges my Fire Punch. **-"But ya gotta do better n' that t' beat me!"-**

Unfortunately, it's tough going as he's just a tiny bit faster than I am; every time I see an opening, I go for it, but he always manages to be one step ahead of me.

 _How do I beat him if I can't land a hit on him? He just won't stop moving any more than..._

That thought makes me realize what I'm doing wrong here. My natural instinct is to just run in as fast as possible then smash and smash until the other guy is down, but that doesn't work when he's quicker. So for once I go against my instincts; as soon as I get some space between us, I stop moving altogether and let him charge me.

 **-"Ya may be slowin' down, but I'm just gettin' started! QUIIIIIIIIIIIICK—"-**

He doesn't get to finish his sentence because I jump at the last second and stomp his head as he goes for a Take Down, sailing under me. I land in a roll, spinning to face him as I come to a stop; he's dazed, but once he shakes it off he charges again, this time looking more than a bit angry. He draws his right arm back for a Slash... only for me to block the incoming attack and Fire Punch him in the face, knocking him out cold.

I turn around to see Blaze managing to hold his own against Wisefang, using feints and fake-outs left and right to distract from his real attacks and gradually wearing down the herdier until the latter finally goes down.

"The victory belongs to Ken and Blaze!"

With that announcement, my brother leaps into my arms and we share a hug in celebration of our first gym battle as a team.

* * *

 _ **Like this chapter? Have complaints about it? Enjoyed the fight or the reveal? Have issues with the dialogue? If the answer to even one of those questions is "yes", please leave a review—reviews not only motivate me to keep going, they also help me get better as a writer! See you next chapter!**_


	9. Psychics Are Cliched and Riddle-y

I wander around the small wooded yard behind the Nacrene City Pokemon Center, smiling as the sun shines down on my face. Cheren and Bianca took their turns fighting against Lenora's regular pokemon; true to form, Cheren and Riverclaw managed a quick win—even faster than mine and Blaze's—thanks to their teamwork and Cheren's quick thinking. Bianca and Emerald struggled a lot, but managed to just pull out a victory in the end. Riverclaw and Blaze only needed light aid at the Center, but Emerald needed a little extra care; nothing serious, but from what the nurses said we should definitely spend the night before heading off toward Castelia.

Bianca seems... off. I can't really explain it any better than that. If I had to guess I'd say it was probably concern for Emerald, but Emerald herself is little more than pouty over the whole thing, and it seems to be a little more than that from Bianca anyway. Thankfully, Cheren has known her longer and plans to talk to her a bit, but suggested that Blaze and I go with Riverclaw and Emerald out into the yard where the other pokemon hang out at this place once they're healed. Trainers don't usually go out here—why, I don't know—but I figure that due to the whole "half chimchar" revelation and the battle, I count more as a pokemon anyway. I always felt like one to begin with—and the battle plus that reveal just made it feel official, now. It's a good enough feeling that I find myself just basking in it while the others run around...

 **-Boy-of-two-bloods.-**

 **~((Well, this looks interesting.))~**

I whip around to look for the new voice to see a Xatu sitting in a tree above me, looking me right in the eye. I may not know much about Unova beyond the forest I grew up in, but I know that Xatu are almost unheard of in this region, so I feel more than a little weirded out. Not to mention...

 **-"'Boy-of-two-bloods'? Are you talking to me?"-**

The psychic bird looks like he might be confused, but I can't be sure, and the expression doesn't last long before he turns his gaze back on me. **-"Hmm. It seems he told the truth; I can see so little of your future."-**

 **-"Who are you talking about? Who's 'he', and what's this about my future?"-**

 **-"We the flying-seers possess the gift of Future Sight; little of the future is beyond our ability to see. Of you, I see much: betrayal-that-is-not by a betrayer-who-was-betrayed. A lonesome journey up a twisted mountain in the shivering cold, during which greater fire is found. A battle of dragons... and a battle of Gods, one of which you will not know until your time here in Unova is at an end."-**

 **~((Huh? That doesn't seem right. How could he know...))~**

Before I can ask about the meaning of all that, the Xatu continues. **-"Yes, your time in Unova will end not long after your battle against the Elite Four. And yet, that is but the start of a long journey, none of which I can see."-**

I start to feel a bit annoyed; I'm confused here, and I don't like being confused **. -"You're not making any sense! If you can see the future, why can't you tell it to me in plain pokespeak instead of talking in weird riddles?!"-**

 **-"Because I was not the one to make this prophecy,"-** the Xatu says, shaking his head. **-"I am a messenger of the one who did, and he gave me strict instruction not to alter it."-**

 **-"So who made it?"-**

A long pause followed. **-"A bird-who-is-not-a-bird. Black of feather but with no feather at all; its sight is beyond even ours, for we, the flying-seers, can see only the future, and only the future of this world. The Black Bird of Dreams sees all—past, present, future, in many worlds."-**

 **~((Okay, what the heck is this thing talking about? I can't think of any pokemon that fits that description...))~**

I shake my head again in frustration. **-"So if this... bird who isn't a bird can see so much, why didn't** _ **he**_ **make this message easier to understand? And why didn't he come himself?"-**

 **-"He tells you what you must know to make the proper decisions, but not enough to alter the course you must follow to free yourself of the influence of the hidden enemy of whom you know nothing... yet. This enemy sees much, but cannot see what the Black Bird of Dreams sees. Your enemy's sight is vast, but with limits; the Black Bird of Dreams has no limit to his sight. But he cannot divulge much without this enemy knowing what is planned."-**

 **~((No way. There's no way this thing knows about me. And what the hell can't I see?))~**

 _*[[There is much you cannot see, fool. Come, we must talk—though I doubt you will enjoy the conversation.]]*_

 **~((Arceus? What are you doing here—oh, nevermind. Just let me finish watching this—))~**

 _*[[NOW.]]*_

 **~((...Dammit.))~**

I still can't wrap my head around any of this. **-"Well, can he at least give me some useful advice?"-**

 **-"Yes. 'When the Xatu gives this message, the enemy's eyes and ears are averted, but there is little time before he returns, so listen well: train your body and your skills hard, but train your mental fortitude harder, for the enemy will interfere with that in ways that would otherwise break you. When the time comes, brace your mind as best you can; you will know when the moment comes, but even then you will not be the same afterward. You will encounter me in person not long after that.' Farewell, young one."-**

 **-"Hey, wait!"-**

The Xatu flies off before I can stop him, leaving me more confused than ever.

* * *

 **~((You can't do this.))~**

 _*[[I can, and I have.]]*_

 **~((This is MY jumper, MY game! You don't get to decide—))~**

 _*[[You impersonated me; I believe I am entitled to some interference in return. And you had best learn your place.]]*_

 **~(( _MY PLACE?!_ I'm a god just like you, my origins don't—))~**

 _*[[YOU ARE A MORTAL WHO CLAIMED NEAR-OMNIPOTENCE. Nothing more. Near-omnipotence and true omnipotence are entirely different concepts; your sight, too, is far short from that of a true god. Even our audience—yes, I can see them as well, did you truly think yourself unique in that respect?—can perceive more than you, fool. You are no god, and even for gods there are consequences for actions that endanger existence itself.]]*_

 **~((...What?))~**

 _*[[Hmph. You don't even know, do you? Jumpchains are not mere methods of amusement that can be meddled in according to one's desires; while many who instigate them do start them for amusement, and find amusement from them, jumpchains—and, by extension, jumpers—play a vital role in the regulation of existence itself, a role in which you are interfering. Your protests ring hollow, as more voices than my own have decided upon this course of action in response to that interference as a method of balancing the scales you have so foolishly tipped.]]*_

 **~((It's your fault for not telling me sooner.))~**

 _*[[Would you have listened, or obeyed? I doubt it. You obey little more than your own petty whims.]]*_

 **~((Ugh, fine. But don't act all high-and-mighty yourself; if you were really serious, you would have picked a worse punishment than—))~**

 _*[[This is not a punishment. It is a warning. If—and when—you are punished, you will wish you had heeded the warning to begin with.]]*_

 **~((...))~**

 _*[[Nothing to add? Good. I have nothing more to say to the likes of you, save for this: the next time you think of undue interference, know that you are, have been, and always will be, a very small fish in an endless ocean of leviathans. Now begone, and never again interfere in my creation without my express permission.]]*_

* * *

 _I'm running through the woods with the rest of my troop; the sun is shining, Mom and Dad and Blaze are with me, and everything is as it should be. I'm happy..._

 **~((Grr... jerk. Aw, crap, looks like I missed it! The chump is already asleep back at the Center!...wait. 'Ken' isn't Arceus' creation, so he's still fair game... I wasn't planning on messing with his memories again until the end of this jump, but maybe just a couple of snippets of his old life into his dreams will switch things up...))~**

" _I can't believe it, my first music commission!"_

 _What? Who is this human? He looks familiar..._

" _And here I thought my life was at a dead stall. Maybe it'll be better now—"_

 _NO! He's falling through—why am I so worried about him? Why does he look so familiar? He had so much to do, and now he—what—I can't—"_

"GAAAH!"

I wake up in a cold sweat; I'm in bed at the Pokemon center, Blaze next to me.

 **-"Fire? What's wrong?"-**

"Hey, Kenny, you alright?"

"Did you have a bad dream?"

I look at everyone, trying to get my bearings straight; finally, I let out a sigh. "Yeah, Bianca, I guess I did. Sorry to wake you all, but I'm fine now..."

I try to go back to sleep, but the dream sticks with me. What the heck was _that?_ This was a weird day... Hopefully things will make sense tomorrow.

* * *

 _ **Sorry about the short chapter, guys, but IRL is still controlling me, and outside of that I still have to finish Call of the Force. Once college is done with and that fic is finished, I should have more time to spend on this. Read and review!**_


	10. Bend the Knee or Bee Destroyed!

**A/N:** **_Hey, I'm still here! With Call of the Force over and done I'm free to come back to this. Just a note for anyone unfamiliar with jumpchains, I'll be occasionally speeding through the various settings to focus on character growth and keep from spending like an eternity in each setting—and Pokemon will not be an exception to this. As a result, I'm skipping Castelia City and Burgh's gym battle because honestly neither interest me enough to bother. The main points of the Pokemon story will still get their moments to shine, though, so don't worry about that. I'm also abandoning the present-tense used in Ken's PoV sections since it's a pain to keep up._**

* * *

"Hey, don't get too far ahead, Kenny!"

"Sorry, Cheren... I just kinda got excited now that I can just swing through the trees like normal."

The poke-raised boy swung down from a high branch before landing in a crouch, his adoptive brother landing next to him before the two made their way back to the rest of the group.

Cheren smirked a bit at Ken's four-legged gait. "Ken, you're dragging your knuckles."

"Give me a break," Ken said, rolling his eyes off of Bianca's giggles. "This is the closest Blaze and I have been to home since we left; no one's around to be weirded out by it, so I might as well embrace my pokemon side while we're here."

 _Huh, Kenny seems to be doing better,_ Cheren thought as the group continued to make their way through Pinwheel Forest. _I wonder what that nightmare he had was about? Whatever it was, it must have been bad—it was almost like he was a completely different person for a few minutes after he woke up from it._

Cheren thought back to the night before. Ken had claimed he was fine, but upon further prodding his whole demeanor briefly changed; not only was he sarcastic and moody, he used strange words and phrases that made no sense—what the heck was a Spanish Inquisition? From the context, he guessed that it was some form of unwanted interrogation—and stranger still, Ken himself seemed confused as to his own word choice, not knowing what the words had meant any more than Cheren or Bianca.

 _Well, at least he's gotten over it; looks like his good mood has helped Bianca a bit, too._

Truthfully, Cheren had been worried about both his companions. After her struggle to win her battle against Lenora, Bianca had seemed depressed; at first, he thought this was just worry over Emerald, who had received minor injuries during the fight, but over the course of his private conversation with her he became convinced that it was something else. Bianca had hinted at a high degree of self-doubt over her qualifications as a trainer, but beyond that she remained tight-lipped about whatever was truly bothering her. In any case, things had improved and were more or less back to normal.

"Hold up," Ken said, stopping in his tracks and sniffing the air, Blaze following suit.

Bianca walked over to the pair, mild worry on her face. "What's wrong, Kenny?"

The boy in question nodded to his brother before looking up at her from his crouch. "There's a big Beedrill hive nearby."

"B-b-beedrill? They're super-territorial... wh-what if they attack us? Beedrill hives can have up to two hundred individuals at any given time!"

Cheren couldn't help but be impressed by the girl's knowledge. "Wow, Bianca, I didn't even know that... in any case, this is definitely a problem if we're going to get to Castelia before tomorrow night; going around might take a while, and that's assuming we don't get horribly lost. Any ideas, Ken? You grew up in this sort of environment, you must have some clue of what to do here."

"They don't generally let people through their territory without a fight, though if we can prove we're not a threat they might leave us alone," Ken said with a sigh. "Just let me and Blaze do the talking, but be ready to run if they don't take it well."

Cheren and Bianca nodded before following Ken and Blaze's lead, slowly and carefully walking forward into the nearby bushes.

* * *

 **-"You sure about this, Fire? Cheren and Bianca are obviously trainers, and if there's one thing beedrill hate more than trespassers, it's trainers. They might not bother talking at all."-**

I kept my eyes open for trouble as I whispered back to Blaze. **-"It's worth a try, at least; I'd rather risk it than have to fight an entire hive without trying to avoid it."-**

As soon as we passed through the bushes and entered a small clearing, huge swarms of the stinging bug-types shot out of the trees and surrounded us; among them was a particularly huge and _very_ angry-looking beedrill that was obviously the hive queen.

 **-"Trainers! Humans! Drive them back, my children! Drive them away from the hive—"-**

 **-"Wait, stop! We don't want any trouble,"-** I said, bowing to the ground. Beedrill queens tend to like it when you act like their subjects.

Thankfully, she seemed to accept it, though she was definitely surprised that I spoke like a pokemon. **-"You wear fake-skin like a trainer... you look like one, too. But you speak our language. You are properly raised, then?"-**

I nodded, still bowing; looking behind me briefly, I noticed with a smile that Cheren and Bianca had followed my lead and bowed as well before turning back to the queen. **-"Yes, Your Majesty. I am Little-Fire, and this is my brother Heart-Blaze; I may wear the trappings of humans, but that is merely to avoid insulting them. I would prefer to go without fake-skin as a proper pokemon should, but sadly humans are rather barbaric and silly when it comes to their strange rules on covering up. Forgive their, and my, impertinence in that regard, Your Majesty."-**

 **-"Very well,"-** The queen said, accepting my response but not abandoning her aggressive tone. **-"I will hear your request... but speak quickly, before I change my mind!"-**

I sighed in relief; this was going better than I'd hoped. **-"You are most kind, Your Majesty. My companions and I merely wish to travel further toward the sunset-lands; they lack the wild-ways to see a proper path through the forest, and as such I am acting as their guide. They have no intent of capturing or fighting your hive, and seek only to walk in peace; will you please grant our lowly group safe passage through your kingdom?"-**

A long pause occurred; for a moment, I was worried that the Queen would reject us and attack, but thankfully she was convinced. **-"You and your humans may pass through our kingdom, stranger—but only under guard of my children. When you have passed beyond our borders, you shall be left alone, but only so long as you do not return. Be warned, however: if you have deceived us, if you attempt to attack, if you so much as** _ **touch**_ **a hold-berry... then you and your companions shall suffer the full wrath of the sting-flyers, and you will never leave these woods alive!"-**

 **-"I understand, Your Majesty. I thank you for your mercy, and swear that neither I nor my companions will break your trust."-**

As the queen left, I looked back to Cheren and Bianca, who slowly stood up. "Well, they've let us through, but only if they get to keep watch on us until we're out of their territory. Just don't take out any hold-balls, and don't make any sudden moves, and we should be fine."

"Got it, Kenny," Cheren said with a relieved smile. "I have to say, I wish I could talk to pokemon like you; it would've been interesting to overhear that conversation."

Bianca tried her best to ignore our still-angry-looking guard escort enough to beam at me as well. "Y-yeah, that w-would be pretty cool... could you teach us sometime?"

"Hmm... I don't know. It's complicated, but I could try..."

* * *

"Is it done?"

The three mysterious figures nodded and spoke in unison. "Yes, Your Majesty. We have the dark stone; the league kept it well-guarded in their hidden vault, but their defenses were no match for us."

N hesitated for a moment before responding. "Was... was anyone hurt when you took it? You didn't..."

"Of course not, Your Majesty," said the trio, their heads bowed as they handed him the cold, black orb. "we are your subjects, and thus follow your commands. You commanded that no one be hurt, and so it was."

The green-haired boy sighed in relief. _That's good... I don't like having to do this, but some things must be done for a better world. At least this way no one gets needlessly hurt..._

Before he could speak further, a familiar voice interrupted him. "Ah, Your Majesty! I see the Shadow Trio were successful..."

The three ninja in question vanished from sight as N's face brightened. "Indeed, Ghetsis; that which was stolen from our people so long ago is now finally returned to us. The new world will soon arise..."

"...And you will then truly be King of all Unova... perhaps of all the world soon after!"

Though Ghestsis smiled warmly, the sentence the man uttered briefly brought N's thoughts to a halt. He trusted Ghetsis, more than any other human he'd met—after all, it was Ghetsis who found him alone and frightened in the woods, who told him of his true lineage, who raised him as if he were Ghetsis' own son. _And it was Ghetsis who told me of my destiny, of how I might free pokemon everywhere. But..._

Ghetsis frowned, noting his king's worried expression. "Is something the matter, Your Majesty?"

"I just... I know my heritage. I know I'm the rightful ruler of Team Plasma—"

"Of Unova, Your Majesty."

"Yes, but our kingdom fell ages ago; corrupt as the League is, would people really want to follow _me_ instead? I already struggle with ruling Plasma, even with the aid of you and the Sages. How could I ever hope to rule Unova—let alone the entire world—and do justice to that role?"

A few moments passed between the two before the older man placed a hand on N's shoulder. "Your Majesty, you are truly kind-hearted; that alone counts for a great deal. But you are also brave, and willing to pursue our dream in an honorable fashion. That is why the world will follow you: because out of all the people upon it, you alone have the qualities that make a truly good king."

 _A good king... I still can't believe how lucky I am to have Ghetsis around to advise me; I'd have been crushed by that burden ages ago if not for his guidance and teachings._

For a moment, the King of Team Plasma vanished and was replaced with a formerly lost boy comforted by his father; the only thing preventing N from giving in to that feeling altogether and embracing Ghetsis as such was the realization that he could no longer be a child. He could never be a child again.

Instead, N simply smiled and gave a light bow to his chief advisor. "Thank you, Lord Ghetsis. Your words mean a great deal to me. Now, if you will excuse me, I must prepare to announce our success to the rest of Team Plasma."

As N left, he remained blissfully unaware of a less-than-fatherly smirk on Ghetsis' face...

* * *

 _ **Sorry about the short chapter; things are about to heat up, though, so next chapter should be a lot more interesting. Read and review!**_


	11. Music and Mystery

**A/N:** ** _Remember how I said I was going to skip Castelia completely? Well, I changed my mind; we're still not going into the Burgh battle or the Plasma attacks there, but I realized I needed to have some more character development before heading towards Nimbasa City. Also, if you recognize the cameos in the first half of this chapter, you're officially awesome._**

* * *

As we approached Castelia City, I recalled how amazing Striaton looked to me, and my near-disbelief when Bianca had told me that Castelia was even more impressive; I didn't think buildings could get any bigger than Striaton. By the time we exited Pinwheel Forest, just seeing the bridge leading towards the city left me and Blaze gasping in amazement; when we got close enough to see Castelia itself waiting for us in the distance, though, we were rendered completely and utterly speechless for a few moments.

"So," Cheren said with a smirk, "What do you think? Big enough buildings for you?"

My brother and I nodded in perfect unison. "Yeah... I mean, honestly, this is probably going to be worse for me and Blaze in terms of noise and smell than Striaton or Nacrene, but... Arceus, how do they keep something that looks like it's made almost entirely of glass standing at all?"

 **-"I'm still wondering-** how **-they build them-** so high **-at all, honestly..."-**

Cheren looked over to Blaze with a surprised smile. "Wow, Blaze, you're learning fast! It was just the day before yesterday when you decided to learn to speak like us..."

After the incident with the beedrill hive, we thought about the possibility of teaching Cheren and Bianca poke-speak before throwing that out in favor of teaching Blaze how to talk like a human; in the end, it seemed to prove a lot easier than the original plan would have been. As Blaze puffed out his chest and snorted pridefully, a big grin plastered on his face—he had learned just enough to understand the gist of Cheren's sentence—Bianca nodded to the latter with a smile of her own. "It makes sense to me; there have been plenty of studies that show that Pokemon learn much faster than humans in general, particularly when a human they have a strong bond with is teaching them!"

"Again, you sure know a lot more than either of us about Pokemon research," Cheren said with a nod. "Ever think about doing that for a living?"

Bianca blushed and frowned for a bit, looking at Emerald's hold-ball. "W-well, um... I-I mean, I've studied here and there, b-but it's not all that impressive, really..."

Cheren, Blaze and I gave concerned looks of our own, but eventually we all decided to just move on towards the city. As I predicted, the sounds and noise were even more overwhelming than Striaton or Nacrene, but Blaze and I adjusted a lot faster this time; as we did, the sheer scale of everything hit us like an angry, charging rhydon. There was so much to see that once we reached a large plaza—one that was almost as big as the Nacrene museum and its surrounding area—we all decided to split up and look around it for a bit. As Blaze and I explored on our own, strange sounds coming from a raised platform caught our ears; walking in that direction, we saw a few humans stepping down from the platform, leaving strange human devices on it.

 **-"Whoa, what are those things?"-**

 **-"I think they're called instruments; humans use them to make music."-**

Blaze nodded, though he was still confused. I wasn't sure what the sign on the stage saying "open mic" meant, but from the context I guessed that it meant anyone could go up and play. As I approached, a strange feeling came over me; there was a sense of familiarity that I didn't understand, something drawing me toward the stage, demanding that I try out some of the instruments. Looking them over, I pick up one of the six-stringed things—a guitar, as humans called them—and held it in my hands the way I had seen the humans from earlier doing; a frown came over me. Something about the way it felt in my hands felt a little wrong, like the instrument and me didn't fit, somehow, like it just... wasn't me. That's when I looked over and saw an instrument I recognized as a keyboard; walking over to it, I felt my fingers twitching slightly. Then I put my hands on it... and as my fingers touched the keys, a feeling of _rightness_ came over me. It was the total opposite of the feeling I had when I held the guitar; somehow, this instrument felt right. _Not just right... it feels familiar. Why does it feel so familiar?_

Carefully pressing one of the keys, I slowly began to form a melody; before I knew it, my fingers were flowing nearly effortlessly across the instrument, as if I'd been playing it my whole life.

 **-"Whoa... Fire, how are you doing that?"-**

 **-"I... I don't know! As far as I know, this is the first time I've ever touched anything like this, but at the same time it's like it's something I've always done..."-**

A part of me felt worried, even frightened at the strange familiarity—as if this sudden skill belonged to someone else, someone not me. _How do I know this? Where did I learn it from?_

"Hey, not bad, kid!"

We turned around to see a blonde human wearing black clothes, a red headband, fingerless gloves and dark-eye-covers—sunglasses, I recalled; he was accompanied by a similarly-dressed human with long, dark hair, a beard, and strange silver face paint.

"Who are you?" I asked, taking in their strange outfits.

The bearded human spoke up next. "We're playing a show here later today and figured we'd mess around during open mic time—"

 **-"Ugh, stupid human machines! It never fails..."-**

We turned to see a loudred standing behind a stack of box-like machines, grumbling as he fumbled with the wires protruding out the open back of one of the boxes.

The blonde walked over to the loudred, a frown on his face. "Huh? What's Heath doing over there? Is there something wrong with the amps?"

I decided to help a bit. **-"Hey, what's wrong?"-**

The loudred didn't look up at me, not realizing he was speaking to a human. **-"The wiring in this amp is completely shot; they'll need a new one before the show, or I'll have to pick up some of the slack!"-**

"He says it's broken," I said, translating. "you'll need a new one before your show starts."

The two humans looked at each other, then back to me in shock. "How did you do that?"

"I'm poke-raised. This is my... well, my brother, and growing up among pokemon it didn't seem right to put him in a ball."

"I see," replied the blonde human. "Wait, if you're poke-raised, where'd you learn to play like that?"

"A ranger taught me," I lied.

The bearded human laughed. "Well, that ranger certainly knew his stuff! You wanna jam with us for a bit? We still have several hours to go, plenty of time to have a bit of fun before we have to grab a spare amp from the van..."

I paused for a bit before shaking my head. "No, I've... I've got things to do. Thanks for the offer though."

With that, I walked off the stage, leaving the two humans and the loudred to do whatever. Blaze gave me yet another worried look.

 **-"Fire, you sure you're okay? This isn't normal, you know."-**

It took me a few seconds to muster up a half-hearted reply. **-"I'll be fine. We can figure out what's going on with me some other time; maybe it'll all become clear after a while..."-**

* * *

Mewtwo sat in the cave he had chosen as his current resting spot; he was less than a month from the region the humans referred to as Unova, and once he arrived his divinely-appointed hunt would begin. Closing his eyes, the legendary psychic-type relaxed, beginning his meditations...

"Ah, I was wondering when you would finally decide to rest."

"What? Who dares—"

Opening his eyes, Mewtwo found himself in an endless sea of grey—the psychic plane, he realized—and quickly began searching for the source of the voice he had heard in his mind.

"Who intrudes upon my mind? Show yourself, coward!"

"As you wish," the voice responded; a shape began to form in front of him, slowly coming together in the shape of a Murkrow. "Is this to your satisfaction?"

Mewtwo snorted angrily. "You think you can fool me with that form? You are dealing with the most powerful psychic-type in the world; I can see that you are no Murkrow, though I cannot quite determine your true identity yet..."

"I thought perhaps you would prefer something familiar," the presence said, its voice an eerie monotone, devoid of emotion. "My truest form is... similar to a Murkrow, but nothing you would recognize."

As Mewtwo focused his power, the true form of the intruder slowly became apparent to him... though confusion quickly set in. At first, it did indeed seem to be something akin to a Murkrow—a black flying-type, but with three eyes and a strange aura—but then it shifted to reveal a human sitting in some sort of wheeled contraption before changing back to the flying-type. The back-and-forth shifting of its true form was bizzare; at times, it seemed as if this presence was both the bird and the human at the same time.

"What are you? The human, or the flying-type?"

"I was human, once," the presence said. "but that boy died long ago; he died in a dark place, far from home. I am more the bird than him at this point, though you are incorrect in your assumption that it represents some form of pokemon."

"Impossible. What else could it be, if not a pokemon?"

"Something from my world; it is a world apart from yours, one where pokemon do not exist. Though even in my world I am unique among all creatures, for the bird form is only visible to the mind's eye."

"Enough exposition," Mewtwo huffed angrily. "Speak quickly, before I tear your mind apart."

"You could not do that if you tried, for your power cannot reach across worlds; mine can. But I suppose I should get to the point," the being said. "You have been deceived, Mewtwo. Your mission is a lie."

"HOW DARE YOU! I was tasked by Arceus himself—"

"It was not Arceus who spoke to you, but another in his guise. Think back to that conversation; was there not something odd about his aura?"

He recalled the conversation in question, only for his eyes to widen in shock; whatever the entity before him was, it was correct. He had been so caught up in the shock of that moment that he barely noticed anything strange, but the more he thought back the more furious he became at the deception.

"Who. Who was it."

"It matters not, for though the culprit was not Arceus, he is above you in power still. What matters is the target of your hunt; the imposter was not lying in that a human walks as a pokemon, and is indeed in Unova."

"Hmph. An abomination; Arceus or no, I will still destroy such an insult, no matter what you say—"

"I do not intend to disuade you."

Mewtwo paused; he had not expected that response. "What."

"I would in fact have you continue your hunt, albeit with one condition: you allow your quarry an additional month, and upon reaching it allow it to speak before you attack."

"And why would I do this?"

"Because by that time your curiosity concerning this individual will have grown to the point where you will not be able to resist learning more about him," the entity stated. "And once you have confronted him, I will reveal to you a method of striking back at the one who deceived you, though you will not be able to accomplish it for some time."

The psychic-type considered the offer carefully; finally, after several minutes of thought, he nodded. "Fine. I will play your little game. Now begone from my mind, whatever you are—and do not think I will forget your intrusion."


	12. More Secrets and Broody Ken

**A/N:** **_Okay, once again I changed my mind about Castelia (last time, I swear). I needed one more Plasma incident before moving on to Nimbasa; at first, there was going to be something happening on the way there, but I realized that what I had planned seemed too similar to the incident in the cave from a few chapters ago and decided to rewrite it. We'll get to Nimbasa next chapter, I swear!_**

* * *

Blaze and I smiled at our new badges from the Castelia City gym. Burgh's team was so fast we had trouble keeping our eyes on them, but we managed a win regardless due to our toughness and strength (our fire moves didn't hurt, either). Cheren and Riverclaw succeeded as well, with the former's strategic genius and the latter's technical skill proving a force to be reckoned with. Bianca and Emerald, on the other hand, decided to wander around the city for a bit and meet us back at the Pokemon Center; Bianca said she needed to think for a while, and while Emerald didn't say anything to me or Blaze when we asked her about it she said that Bianca was trying to make an important decision and we'd know what it was once it was made. Cheren seemed to have some idea of what it was, but if he knew, he wasn't telling.

After the battle, Cheren decided to go shopping for supplies for the next leg of our journey; I decided to follow Bianca's example and wander around the city with Blaze some more before heading for the Pokemon Center. Truth be told, I needed some time to think as well; the foreign yet familiar sensations from the keyboard earlier still weighed on me, and the strange sensation of event-again—what humans call "Deja vu"—wasn't going away either.

 **~((Heh, looks like his old memories are still getting to him; I may not be able to mess with the rest of this world, but at least I can heighten the drama a bit. Damn Arceus, ruining my fun...))~**

As I walked on, Blaze sitting on my shoulder in silence to let me think, I accidentally walked right into a strange alley; looking at my surroundings for the first time, I spotted a Murkrow on a not-want-box—a dumpster.

 **-"Hey, do you live around here?"-** I asked politely; **-"Can you tell us where the main street is? My brother and I are sort of lost..."-**

The flying-type didn't respond; the way it stared at me was sort of unsettling, like it was seeing through my soul.

 **-"Um... please?"** -

More silence. More staring.

 **-"Hmph. Rude... Come on Fire, let's get moving and maybe we can find our way without his—"-**

 **-"Remember what the Xatu said."-**

The Murkrow's words startled me a bit; how did he know about that? The way it spoke was strange too, devoid of any emotion.

 **~((Wow, I'm glad I don't need to get directions from strangers anymore thanks to Godhood. "Go South and leave me alone" doesn't help at night when you don't know where you are or what direction you're facing...))~**

 **-"Remember what the Xatu said. The betrayer-who-was-betrayed will appear soon; listen to what he has to say, but once he issues his challenge you must face him with everything you have if your journey is to succeed. As for the true enemy, he cannot see or hear everything, not while I blind his sight; when next you hear from me, I will explain more. Also, tilt your head to the right in three seconds." -**

Blaze and I blinked as the Murkrow flew off, but I decided to take his advice for the heck of it and tilted my head after the stated time had passed.

 _CR-CRACK!_

The deafeningly loud, sharp sound echoed through the night as a rush of wind passed by the spot where my head was; I whipped around, looking for whatever caused it, but saw nothing out of the ordinary.

 **~((Holy shit! Talk about lucky... a couple centimeters difference and this would have been the shortest jumpchain ever...))~**

Turning around once again, I saw a small crater in the brick wall at the end of the alleyway; looking at it closely, I could make out a very deep hole in the center of it. A chill ran down my spine as Blaze spoke exactly what was on my mind.

 **-"Fire... did someone just try to kill us?"-**

* * *

Sage Giallo threw the phone away in disgust; the assassin he had sent had just called to report a failure, as the target somehow avoided the shot meant to kill him. Not only that, but the trio of Jessie, James, and Purrloin were still refusing to report in since retrieving the information he'd requested, and had likely gone rogue for real.

"Damn it... how hard can it be to kill one little BRAT?!"

Shouting in rage once again, Giallo slammed his fists on his desk, sending the papers flying everywhere; he had meticulously gathered all relevant information on "Subject M" and the project that produced it just as Ghetsis shut it all down and ordered the subject's termination, followed by that of the scientists that stole it. Had the assassin succeeded, the inquiry into the murder of a child their "King" personally knew and thought of as a friend would lead to his own "discovery" of the documents, as well as the mysterious (and suspiciously convenient) suicide of the assassin themselves; when it was all said and done, all signs would point to Ghetsis, his old scheme exposed, and the King would probably have the the old fool executed for the crime... with Giallo being in the perfect position of trust as his new chief advisor.

As he slowly calmed down, Giallo gave a sigh of resignation. All he had to do was try again. Ghetsis was still blissfully unaware of this, and while the target would likely be on greater guard there would likely be plenty more opportunities in the future.

The game was still on. All he had to do was wait for the next chance, and soon enough he'd be smiling over Ghetsis' fresh corpse.

* * *

Cheren frowned at Bianca. "You're sure?"

"Y-yes. I've made my decision, and I'll stand by it..."

"If you and **-Emerald-** both agree on **-all of this-** , I guess there's nothing we can do to **-stop you-** ," Blaze responded; Cheren was still surprised at how fast the chimchar was learning, and the novelty of hearing him talk like a human had yet to wear off.

Bianca was clearly surprised as well, but just as resolute—a word Cheren never thought he'd use to describe her, even though he thought highly of her intelligence.

"I guess... I guess battles were just never my 'thing'. Emerald and I are still a team, and we'll keep traveling with you all and help you as much as we can, but in the end, I think... I think I'll do better as a researcher like the Professor than as a trainer. I could even take over documenting Kenny and Blaze for her, too!"

Kenny was silent, but listening; since he got back to the Center, he'd been rather shaken, and Blaze as well. They had been about to explain whatever had happened to them when Bianca entered their room and announced her decision to stop pursuing badges and focus on becoming a Pokemon Researcher instead.

 _I'll have to ask them about that in the morning..._

"Well, if this is what you want, then I'm happy for you," Cheren said with a smile. "I mean, it's your choice, and you know more about pokemon research than the rest of us already."

Bianca returned the smile before looking back at Cheren, Ken, and Blaze. "So how far is Nimbasa from here? Are we going to be okay in the desert?"

Cheren nodded. "We should be fine as long as we make sure to stay hydrated, travel in the morning and afternoon, and rest in the tent during noon and night. It'll take longer, but we won't have to worry about the heat during the day or the cold at night; if it all goes smoothly and we set off early tomorrow morning, we should reach Nimbasa in a couple of days at the most."

With that, the party turned in for the night, prepared for the next leg of their journey. As Cheren drifted off to sleep, he looked at Ken and Blaze with mild worry.

 _Whatever it is, it has them both pretty shook up. What happened?_

* * *

 _ **As always, read and review!**_


	13. Betrayal

**A/N:** ** _Just to let you guys know, I'm taking heavy liberties with the backstory and lore of Black and White—IMO, that game missed a huge opportunity to really build up consistent lore while also tackling the human/pokemon relationship thing it promised but never really came through on. Also, this chapter marks a turning point of sorts in the story; with that in mind, I plan to use this one to take a brief break from this fic until I get to a similar point in one of my other fics so I'm not constantly juggling all my ongoing ones. Don't worry, I'll get back to this—I swear!_**

* * *

The trip through the desert was long and difficult—for Cheren and Bianca. For me and Blaze, though, it was easy enough, at least during the day—probably because we're both fire-types and weren't bothered by the heat. Thankfully, Cheren had bought plenty of water in Castelia for our trip, so we didn't need to worry about that at least. By the afternoon of the first day, though, the others were exhausted, so we set up camp early to get some much-needed shade. As we watched the sun set over the western horizon, I noticed some odd shapes jutting out of the distant sands, made all the more visible by the fading light.

"Hey, what're those weird things off in the distance? Looks like a city..."

"You're right," Blaze said, hopping on top of my head and shielding his eyes with a hand as he looked in that direction. "but I thought the next human **-city-** was North?"

Cheren searched the horizon as well before responding. "No, that's not Nimbasa. It could be a mirage..."

"I know what that is! It's Relic!"

We all turned to look at Bianca, who seemed somewhat excited. Off our looks, she continued.

"Oh! Uh, Relic was the site of the capital of an ancient kingdom that once ruled over most of Unova roughly a thousand years ago before its collapse. Well, Relic is the modern name, but... well, it's so old and the writing system is only half-understood, so there's no way to know what the people there called it."

 _Huh, she's more and more confident-sounding now that she's chosen to be a researcher instead of a battle trainer._

I kept that thought to myself as Cheren spoke up next. "So, what caused its collapse?"

Bianca looked up in thought. "Hmm... Ah! Now I remember! There are a few theories; one is that the climate shifted enough to make farming here unsustainable, one involves a civil war... but the truth is, no one really knows. All anyone knows is the legend: once, it was a place where pokemon and humans lived side-by-side in a relationship of true equals; then one day, the twin brothers who ruled the city—each one partnered with a powerful dragon-type pokemon—had a falling-out. The aftermath laid waste to everything... or so the legend goes."

Blaze and I stared off at the ruins again; as Cheren continued his questioning, Blaze switched back to normal speech and whispered in my ear. **-"Where pokemon and humans lived as true equals... you think they'll ever make that happen again, Fire?"-**

I thought about it for a bit before shrugging. **-"Who knows? It's possible—you and I are proof, and besides, N seems to have that dream. Maybe we could talk to him about it the next time we see him?"-**

* * *

We reached Nimbasa a couple of days later. It was nowhere near as big as Castelia, but what it lacked in scale it more than made up for in color and sound; everywhere we looked, there were bright colors, fancy fountains, speakers playing cheerful music, and—strangest of all, at least to me and Blaze—bizzare contraptions that humans rode, from a structure that looped and twisted as people screamed in delight to a truly gigantic "wheel" that slowly turned, ferrying humans high into the sky. According to Cheren and Bianca, half the city was what humans called an "amusement park", where people go to... well, have fun and be amused. We still had time before check-in at the pokemon center, so once again we decided to briefly split up. Blaze and I wandered over to the wheel—a Ferris Wheel, as Cheren called it—and decided to see what all the fuss was about. As we stood in line, a familiar voice called out to us.

"Little-Fire! Heart-Blaze! Fancy meeting you here!"

N strode up to us with a smile as Blaze responded from my shoulder. **-"Nice to see you, too. Kinda funny how we keep meeting up like this..."-**

"Well, the world is a strange place," he replied with a soft chuckle before turning his gaze to me. "How are you faring, Little-Fire?"

I started to reply positively before remembering the issues I'd been having since Nacrene. **-"Well... a lot's happened since we last met, and I'm still trying to process it all."-**

N frowned sympathetically. "Is that so? Would you like to talk about it?"

 **-"Not here,"-** I said, looking around. **-"I mean, it's just not something I'm interested in talking about publicly. Bad people have been out to get me, and... well, it'd be nice to talk to someone I know I can trust about it all."-**

"I understand. Perhaps we can discuss it on the ferris wheel? That should be a decently private location."

We boarded a strange box, and as soon as the doors closed we heard a strange clanging noise as the gigantic wheel began to move, carrying us up into the air; it was startling, to say the least, and it took a a couple of seconds to get used to it. Thankfully, the wheel moved slowly and stopped periodically, which meant there was plenty of time to hold a conversation.

"...wait, you're what?"

 **-"Half-Chimchar,"-** I said. **-"I don't understand it either; all I know is, when I first found out about it, I felt... happy. Like it was confirming something I always knew deep down."-**

"Little-Fire, that's incredible!" N looked at me with a look of strange fascination. "You're the union of two worlds! To be honest, I envy you that..."

I looked back at him. **-"Envy? Why envy?"-**

He sighed for a bit before continuing. "Well... it's a long story. Did you, by any chance, see those ruins along the way between Castelia and here?"

 **-"Yeah, some ancient human city,"-** Blaze replied. **-"According to one of our friends, it was a place where humans and pokemon lived as equals."-**

"Indeed it was. The world lost a true paradise when it fell..."

 **-"How do you know about it? And what does it have to do with why you envy me?"-**

"I'm getting there, Little-Fire," N said calmly. "Do you recall the last time we met, when I said I knew people who would not judge you and would give you a place you would not find in normal human society?"

Blaze and I nodded, but remained silent as he continued. "Well, the people I refer to are the descendants of that kingdom. The city may have collapsed, but the kingdom lived on; it was, however, a kingdom without a king, for both of the twin brothers who ruled there had vanished, never to be seen again. A kingdom without a king... until thirteen years ago, when they found a boy in the woods, living in perfect kinship with pokemon, and realized he was the descendant of one of the brothers. That boy... was me."

It was now our turn to be amazed, and Blaze was the first to speak up. **-"Wait, you're what?"-**

N chuckled. "Yes, it sounds strange to me as well. But... there is no denying the facts. I may not share your... unique nature, but I have a nature of my own that is similar. From the very beginning, I had always felt a strange kinship with Pokemon, even more than with other humans; my green hair, too, set me apart from others. When they found me, I learned why: the twins, too, had such a connection, and their bloodline... _my_ bloodline... was known for vibrant green hair."

He paused briefly with a sad expression. "Adjusting to the role has been... difficult, to say the least. Apparently, my ancestors prophesied that the return of the king would herald a return of the kingdom, and with it the return of the ideal the kingdom was founded on. The ideal of a world where pokemon and humans can truly live in equality and harmony. The idea that such a dream rests upon my shoulders... I understand pokemon, but I am not a true bridge between them and humans. You, Little-Fire... you are far more of a perfect symbol for that ideal than I am. That's why I envy you."

We remained silent for a while before I spoke up. **-"Maybe we can work together a bit. I've got questions that need answering, you sound like you need help as well..."-**

Blaze nodded with a smile. **-"Yeah! And maybe your friends can help keep us and our friends safe!"-**

N stopped in his tracks for a while; he looked pleasantly surprised by what we said. "You'd be willing to help me?... thank you, both of you. Perhaps together we can all find the answers we seek."

The ride ended shortly after that; as we exited and walked along the path toward the city proper, I decided to ask a question that had been nagging at me since the conversation started. **-"By the way, what's the name of the kingdom? If we're going to be friends with them, we ought to know their names..."-**

N smiled warmly. "Ah, yes, of course; well, the original name of the kingdom is a little tricky to pronounce, but then we generally just use the modern translation of the name anyway."

 **-"And that is?"-**

" 'Plasma'."

Time seemed to stop at that word, a word that sent what felt like a knife to my heart.

It wasn't possible.

N was my friend.

I trusted him.

He couldn't be with them.

I _trusted_ him...

 **-"YOU! You're with _them!"-_**

"Little-Fire? What's wrong—"

 **-"GET AWAY FROM ME! Your people tried to kill me and my friends!"-**

"Little-Fire, that's preposterous! I would never—"

I felt my rage at the betrayal take over, and before I knew it my fist was ablaze and I was charging straight at him. **-"LIAR!"-**

My fist connected... with something decidedly _not_ N. Instead, it had connected with a massive form with rough skin; looking up, I saw to my shock what my fist had struck: a druddigon. The dragon-type turned to look at N with a worried expression.

 **-"Are you alright, Your Majesty?"-**

"Yes, thanks to you, Proud-Wing."

I jumped back, Blaze having only barely managed to stay on my shoulder in spite of his fear of the dragon-type.

 **-"Wait, where did he come from? I thought you didn't use hold-balls!"-**

"I don't, Heart-Blaze. As for where, he has _always_ been nearby. Or have you and Little-Fire truly been as oblivious to your fellow pokemon in your surroundings as humans tend to be?"

Looking around, I saw a Liepard waltz confidently out of a bush where it had been sleeping, a Braviary that had been soaring above landing near me, and a Carracosta rising out of a nearby fountain where it had been gently swimming around before.

N waved the Carracosta off before climbing on the Braviary's back. "I am truly sorry, Little-Fire and Heart-Blaze; I don't know why you think Team Plasma is your enemy—and rest assured, I _will_ get to the bottom of this—but all the same, I can't afford to let you stop me now. There is far too much at stake."

As the Braviary began to take flight, N turned to the Druddigon and the Liepard. "Proud-Wing, Night-Fang... please, don't hurt them too much. They are still my friends. Go easy on them..."

 **-"As you say, so it shall be done, Your Majesty,"-** Proud-Wing answered before turning to us. **-"I bear you no ill will, little ones, but my loyalty is to my King. Let us begin..."-**

* * *

Cheren and Bianca sat in the lobby of the Nimbasa Pokemon Center, where the former sat patiently while the latter looked around in confusion.

"I wonder where Kenny and Blaze are? I haven't seen them in a few hours..."

"Not to worry, Bianca," Cheren responded. "I'm sure they're just having fun—"

"CLEAR THE WAY! We need to get these two to the ER, now!"

Before Cheren could finish the sentence, the front doors burst open as a couple of doctors pulled in two stretchers. It wasn't much more than casual worry until the attending Nurse spoke with one of the emergency responders.

"Wait, shouldn't this one go to a hospital instead?"

"Special case, according to his trainer card, order of the League."

Cheren had not known he was capable of the speed with which he leapt toward the stretchers; on one lay an injured chimchar, and on the other...

"KEN! BLAZE!"

* * *

 _ **Yes, I'm mean to leave you on a cliffhanger. Feel free to hate me in a review or comment!**_


	14. Answers and Questions

**A/N:** _ **I'm back, baby! I've been working on my MHA fanfic a lot, but I'm waiting for a beta reader to help me progress on that. In the meantime, I'm going to continue this fic while I still have inspiration for it. Enjoy the new chapter!**_

* * *

 _I'm running through the forest with my troop. Everything is fine. I'm wild, and free. I'm exactly as I should be..._

 **"Yes, and no."**

 _I'm confused for a moment because I thought I heard a voice, but all I see is my troop—_

 **"You are dreaming, Little-fire. Awaken your mind."**

"Wh... what?"

Suddenly I felt an awareness that wasn't there before; the forest and my troop were still there, but suddenly everything seemed... frozen, the colors now black-and-white. I didn't know how, but I knew I was dreaming.

"What's going on?"

 **"I can answer that."**

I whirled around to see a familiar murkrow. Unlike the rest of the dream, the murkrow was in full color and was moving, looking right at me. "Who are you?"

 **"I would tell you my name, but it is not time for you to know that."**

Something about the way the murkrow spoke was unnerving. There was no emotion—not a trace; its voice was completely monotone. What's more, there was the sense of unfathomable wisdom and knowledge, beyond comprehension. In spite of all that, I had some frustration about my mind being intruded upon like this.

"Look, if you're going to root around in my head, I expect some answers," I said tensely. "My last memory was that the person I thought was my friend turned out to be working with the same people who tried to kill me, my brother, and my friends. Then my 'friend' had his goons attack and beat me and Blaze to a pulp and I blacked out. I'm in zero mood for a mystery guest messing with my head, so you might as well just come out and tell me what the heck is going on. First off—"

 **"No, I am not responsible for the sensations of familiarity with things you did not recognize."**

That was creepy. He knew what I was about to ask before I asked it. That didn't stop me from trying to ask another question, though. "Okay, then—"

 **"I know who it was, and no, I cannot tell you yet."**

"Wh—"

 **"I can't tell you that, either."**

I had finally had enough of this; on pure instinct, I beat my chest, raised my arms and bared my teeth, letting flames erupt all around my body in a warning display. "STOP THAT!"

 **"Very well. The rest of the questions you will ask are the ones I _can_ answer."**

That still irritated me, but at least the guy wasn't interrupting me anymore. I turned off my fire and relaxed a bit, getting into my regular crouch and leaning on my knuckles. "Okay, then. Are you the same murkrow that I met in Castelia?"

 **"Yes."**

"And the one who gave the Xatu the message."

 **"Yes."**

"How the heck can you do that? Murkrows aren't psychic types."

 **"For the simple reason that I'm not really a murkrow."**

"Can you say what you really are?"

The Murkrow smirked, but somehow that smirk seemed fake, lacking any real emotion behind it. **"No."**

This guy was getting on my nerves, but I couldn't exactly do anything about it.

"So why exactly are you here in my dreams?"

 **"I am here to tell you where you need to go next, in full detail, and while I cannot divulge everything about what you will face I will give you what you need to overcome the obstacles in your path. Your unique nature puts you in an equally unique position that few have ever been in, and the next individual with your uniqueness won't come along for a few centuries at the very least. There are matters that simply cannot wait that long, and you must be prepared to play the part required of you. That will not be for some time, however. For now, please be patient and listen to what I have to tell you."**

I started to object again before remembering that I was a captive audience. The murkrow, content that I was listening, continued.

 **"To begin with, you need not fear for yourself or your brother; you are both currently recovering in a pokemon center. Once you are cleared of that, you must receive your Bolt Badge from the Nimbasa gym. You will struggle a bit with that battle, but you will overcome. Once you have that badge, however, you must not linger in the city; instead, you must head immediately toward Driftveil. You will face Team Plasma again and learn more about their goals there, and they will not be any match for you or your friends. The Driftveil gym, on the other hand, will test you to a degree that will be truly punishing; Blaze will succeed. You, on the other hand, must become stronger to stand a chance, and in order to do that you must seek out a master fight-type by the name of Mountain-Breaker. You must do this alone, and send your brother and your friends off without you; once your training is complete, you must collect two more badges before you will reunite with them. After that... your path will be clear to you, and you will neither see nor hear from me again until your journey in Unova is complete."**

There were several moments during the flying-type's monologue where I was tempted to interrupt, but I bit my tongue all the same until he was done talking. "Okay, that was a lot more detail than I expected."

 **"I do not always speak in riddles. When I do, it is because what you are told—even down to the exact wording—can affect your actions and thoughts. Even the smallest change can have extensive results, and there is a specific course of events that must occur. As for the rest... remember what the Xatu said. You will know the answer to one particular riddle he gave you after you do one more thing."**

"And what's that?"

 _ **"** **Wake up."**_

The voice echoed, and the dream faded into black.

* * *

"Hnn..."

Bianca snapped to at the groan. Dashing over to the bed, she shook the sleeping form. "Kenny? Kenny! Wake up! Please, wake up!"

It wasn't long before Cheren and Blaze followed suit, the latter joining her pleas in poke-speak. "Chimchim! Char chimchar chim chimchar!"

"Uhnn... Chimcharchim?" Relief washed over the room as the poke-raised boy finally opened his eyes. "Bianca... Cheren... Chimcharchim... how long was I out?"

"Overnight," Cheren responded with a relieved smile. "You and Blaze were in rough shape, but the center nurses were able to fix you up. Blaze recovered before you did, obviously, likely because the people here aren't exactly used to treating humans. Any ordinary human would have taken a lot longer to recover, but you pulled through fast."

Ken shook his head to clear the remaining fog. After a few more seconds, he sighed and began to speak. "Guys, I have to tell you about—"

"Blaze already told us about N and Team Plasma, Kenny," Cheren said, holding up a hand. "I didn't exactly know the guy, but I know you and Blaze trusted him a lot. I'm sorry."

Bianca frowned sympathetically. "I still can't believe someone who was so friendly to you would betray you like that..."

Ken seemed about to agree when his eyes went wide. "...betray..."

Blaze looked at his brother, speaking human for the sake of convenience. "Fire? What's the matter?"

"A Xatu back in Nacrene told me something. Some sort of prophetic message... and he mentioned a 'betrayal-that-is-not' by a 'betrayer-who-was-betrayed'."

"Kenny, that makes no sense," Cheren said skeptically.

"No, it makes perfect sense now. Looking back on that conversation we had, N seemed genuinely surprised about Plasma attacking us. Not just surprised, he seemed _angry_ , and not at us. When he left, he mentioned having to get to the bottom of something, and he definitely didn't seem happy about it."

Bianca blinked in confusion. "What are you saying?"

"I think I get it," responded Cheren. "It seems that there must be some rift in Team Plasma. Looking back, it _is_ kind of odd that an organization that goes to so much trouble to try and convince people to treat pokemon better would behave contrary to their own message. It's entirely possible that they started out with good intentions, but a more corrupt faction developed from within at some point. N is really young to be in charge, and from what Blaze said the organization is older than him. If the corruption started before he was found by them, it would explain why he was surprised to hear of it."

Bianca nodded in understanding. "In that case, who's the leader of the bad faction?"

* * *

 _Damn it all,_ Giallo thought as he sat in his cell. _How did it all go wrong?_

When N returned from Nimbasa and demanded an investigation into who had attacked the hybrid, Giallo was sure that he could deal with the problem by pointing the investigation in Ghetsis' direction... only to learn that the bastard had turned the tables on him somehow. He could only stand in shock as Ghetsis announced that he had begun investigating corruption within Team Plasma some time previously and discovered incriminating documents... pointing to Giallo. The very same documents he intended to use against Ghetsis were being used against him, though the parts pertaining to the hybrid were clearly missing. Not long after that, he found himself in the dungeons of Plasma's hidden castle, stewing in frustration and trying in vain to think of a way out.

"How low the proud hath fallen," an infuriatingly familiar voice said, dripping with condescension.

 _"Ghetsis,"_ Giallo snarled. "How did you do it?"

"The trio, obviously. Did you really think they were loyal to you? That I would give you pawns that were loyal to anyone but me? How pathetic."

The disgraced sage fumed at the insult. "You planned this from the start, didn't you?"

"I did indeed. You were an excellent scapegoat, Giallo. It was inevitable that N would realize the true nature of Team Plasma; I needed someone to distract from my own designs while making him think that the majority of our order was on his side. Now that you have been captured, I can continue to 'investigate', and if he ever uncovers more of our plans I can simply toss him one of your fellow idiots."

"And what makes you think I won't tell our 'king' of your involvement, hmm? For all your arrogance, you were enough of an idiot to tell me your plans."

"Oh, I'm afraid you won't be in any condition to tell him anything. After all... 'dead men tell no tales'."

Giallo froze in fear before trying, unsuccessfully, to talk his way out. "The security cameras—"

"On a loop of you sitting on your bed."

"If you kill me, there's no way they won't realize I was murdered!"

"I'm not going to kill you. _You_ are."

A strange wave of fog came over him. "Wh... what?"

"Oh really, Giallo. You didn't honestly believe I would explain my plans to you without a reason? I was buying time for the poison to kick in."

Giallo looked at the empty plate of prison food before another wave of fog came over him; it was getting harder and harder to think. "Uh... wh... what did you... put in it?"

"A drug that will make you very suggestible. In a few moments, you won't be able to think for yourself at all; in fact, you'll be such an idiot that you'll _want_ me to think for you. I will tell you what to do, and then I will stroll out... and the cameras will come back on in time to see you commit suicide."

The fog in Giallo's mind grew thicker, and his growing terror was the only thing slowing the inevitable loss of willpower as he felt entire parts of his mind blinking off like lights.

Ghetsis gave a cruel grin. "I have one more thing to say before what little intelligence you have leaves you. Goodbye, Giallo; you were never as smart as you thought you were, and you were never more than a pawn to be sacrificed. Your life, like your death, had no meaning beyond serving me."

It was growing hard to think. So very hard to think. He tried to grasp at his thoughts, but they floated away from him. So tired... so foggy... thinking was too hard... too...

* * *

 _ **With all those little plot threads tied up, the next chapter will begin the next part of the story. Until then, as always, read and review!**_


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